3.5 ⭐️ Not my usual genre of book but it was interesting and carried some good themes about accepting others even tho they’re different and the importance of friendship.

It was sort of Stranger-Things-ish, with the science fiction/fantasy dipped in a historical landscape. I liked that it was slow roll with the story, almost like a ghost story the way it unfolds and gets you invested rather than high intensity.

I didn’t mind that there were little bits of the other characters interspersed in between the main focus of Adelaide Henry. It was not done so much that it felt like there isn’t a focus or there’s too much going on. It fleshed it out more the way it was brief but relevant and I thought it was well done.

The main negative for me was it felt like it was trying to hit every aspect of all-things-to-all-people. Like one after another discriminated or misunderstood people group was represented here well after the concept was delivered. That made it feel a little overdone and less focused, less believable, and lost some of the poignancy. Instead of making me just focus on the theme of how easily and dangerously people judge what they don’t understand, I felt distracted by the peripheral details of yet another characteristic that was now thrown in the mix without being necessary to the story and became overreaching.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.