The book is Mor’s journal or diary, if you will. It’s the bits and pieces of a teenager’s life and the trials and tribulations within it. But this teenager seeks advice from fairies and finds comfort in science fiction and fantasy books. The author allows us to hear Mor’s voice but we get only surface emotions; I never felt a connection to the character. And there is only one character in the whole book. She writes about others but they remain just that; we never see past Mor’s impressions.

The girl reads voraciously and I was a bit envious of the quantity and quality of her reading as she discoursed on various science fiction or fantasy stories and their authors. She joins a book club where she has even more opportunity to discuss SF/F. That part of the book was entertaining but as for the rest – there was no plot. Throughout the book, Mor worries that her mother will find her and do some dastardly, unspecified black magic thing to her. But the fear is so removed since we only hear her writings, that there is no suspense. When she finally confronts her mother, using fiction as her defense, it lasts all of 3 pages.

The very best passage was when Mor found her twin’s shade in the woods and while her sister couldn’t answer her, Mor told her of all the changes in the past months. After she’d done so, she had a revelation – she had always thought she was living for both of them but realized in that moment that that wasn’t true. They would have grown differently and there was no telling what kind of people they would have been. It was quite profound. But other than that: shrug. I could’ve been weeding the garden. – Catherine Book.