paigeawesome

Meh.

I was going to leave things there since it so adequately conveys my feelings toward this book. But here are some quick thoughts:
I think this book would have worked better as a short story. There is no real character development and there are tons of passages that just don't contribute to anything--they don't advance the plot, they aren't necessary to tell us about a character, they don't explain anything, they are not beautifully written (in my opinion; there are people who disagree). It was just tedious and I didn't feel it was very deep. I was baffled by the comparisons to The Night Circus & The Snow Child, both of which I really liked. This seemed more like those fairy tales with the cardboard characters and the superfluous asides and happenings. I think it would have fared better had it been shorter like a fairy tale. Or had more character development going on, or something else to give it a little more oomph.