I just can't figure out this book, which is odd because normally I am a huge fan for the magical realism type of story telling. This one may just be too much. I think the idea was amazing, the fact that the power of a story can save you from the horrors around you. And her exploration of it is intriguing. But I think I always just felt too far away from the characters to really feel for them. It made the whole thing seem like too much of a fairy tale. After reading books like "The Invisible Bridge" that made it hard for me to sleep for weeks, this jut didn't measure up. I didn't feel the terrible pain i knew I should considering what had happened in the book and what the narrator went thought. Objectively I knew it was awful, but the writing kept be so far removed from the reality of it that I just couldn't feel it like I should. I think it was a great concept, but it just seemed too far fetched and contrived...and too focused around the narrator (only she seemed really affected, changed, thrown around, by the "new world" her village created). The writing itself was lyrical, the words were beautiful, and certain phrases really resonated, but on the whole, it was not not quite there for me.