(Dec 2018/inaugural pick for Howl's Moving Book Club.)

2.5 stars.

I thought the premise was really interesting, but I got a little bored along the way due to the novel’s structure: basically Polly realizes her memories have been altered, then we jump back to the day she meets Thomas Lynn and Seb and Laurel and the rest, then follow her ensuing adventures chronologically. It felt more like indulging nostalgia than putting together a puzzle, which isn’t inherently bad but wasn’t what I was expecting; I had hoped for the more fantastical elements to be introduced early on, but they’re really just blips in an otherwise very normal coming-of-age story (where the seemingly only good thing in Polly’s life is her correspondence with Mr. Lynn, who sends her books and harshly criticizes the hero stories she writes).

I also felt like most of the characters get shortchanged, where they’re nice and/or “interesting” but don’t really have much going on outside of the larger plot — which is possibly a failing of Polly’s limited worldview/narration, since she’s pretty self-centered and doesn’t really grow out of it. And that’s disappointing, because Granny and Ann and Fiona all seem terrific and I would’ve loved to get to know them better. Also, I had trouble getting past my concerns about Polly and Tom’s relationship, because it seems coded as romantic despite the huge age gap.

Basically, I wanted to like this but found it more mundane than magical, and problematic in a handful of ways that were hard to overlook.