I would recommend this absolutely and wholeheartedly, and I am fighting back the urge to say that if you don't like it at all, you are dead inside, have no soul, and I pity you.

Right. I don't think it's cool to judge somebody on their preferences when it comes to books or to call them "dead inside" when those preferences don't align with your own (and I'm saying that as somebody who enjoyed the idea of Ash but found the book somewhat flat in construction and worldbuilding).