This one keeps souring in my mind the longer I’m away from it. The problem here is that I do not find stories about flighty people escaping from their responsibilities and the people counting on them–whether or not it was “their fault”–inherently interesting. In fact, I kind of hate them. Maybe other people get more kicks out of exploring their shitty unconnected left behind relationships with parental figures, but I find the whole thing unpleasant and not rewarding in any way.
The one thing I did like about this book was the prose. I didn’t like what she was writing about, but the way the author wrote was very easy to read and managed to invoke interesting and beautiful imagery without setting off my baked in alarms for empty nonsensical meant-to-impress writing. I would read another book from the author, but I would make sure it’s not going to set off any of my other alarms first. This one has a summary that is misleading. It makes it seem like these two daughters, who both have magical abilities, are searching for their mother who went missing, implying some sort of foul play. But when you actually read the book, you find out pretty quickly the mother took off of her own free will (I do not find the excuses she gives at the end plausible in the slightest).
Anyway, a big fail from me, but I can see other people liking it, so I’m rounding up here.
[2.5 stars]
