One of the really impressive things about this book was how skillfully Valentine managed to marry the fairy tale aesthetic to a non-fantastic setting. It's not a fairy tale set in the real world, it's (rather like Oyeyemi's "Boy, Snow, Bird") a story that draws on a sense of fairy tale and folklore without removing the story from the realm of the real. It has the same characteristics of a good fairy tale, where anything can happen and the wisdom or foolishness of the choices, especially of parents, read as inevitable rather than absurd.
That dreamlike state is what makes the story work, but it also distanced me from the characters and made them feel almost insubstantial. It's a gorgeous story in its own way, but one that feels sealed away behind glass.
Fairy tale retellings are tricky and I think I recommend this one more than my rating suggests.