This is a wry, cheeky little book. It is an experimental concept and while the tent posts of the world are grounded in reality, everything between floats in mid-air. I loved the narrow world of our unnamed narrator and her peripheral characters. The claustrophobia made it immersive. I liked the fact that there was never an attempt to shy away from the narrator's cruelty and dismissiveness. There isn't much of an attempt to ingratiate us to her and I thought that was more honest and admirable from a writing standpoint. I enjoyed this book and debated long and hard on my rating. My gripes contradict themselves with my commendations. It's a hard book to parse out. This rating feels truest. 

2023 was surely the year of memoirs for me and this didn't disappoint. As someone who didn't grow up with religion and knows more of the ugly than the good, I came away changed. It is rare intersecting identities complete contradict each other. They merely lead to complexities. Lamya was a solid narrator. The narrative structure worked very well and solidified her points. I'll still think about certain interwoven anecdotes. It was a wonderful book. 

I think my gripes with this book come primarily because I am not a fantasy lover. I found it a little tedious because I am boring and like my books to be intense character studies. I like to think I like experimental books, and perhaps I do, but this particular offshoot was not for me. I think it is an objectively good book and I found the ending satisfying. It was recommended to me by a friend who loved it and I could see it sticking the landing for many a reader.

This book is definitely a cult classic, and I can see its appeal. It's the sort of book a lonely, depressed young woman would savor as revelatory as it could recast their sadness something that makes them ethereal, a fallen angel. The "male gaze" of the neighbor boys adds to the kind of allure of the tortured, broken girls and their tragic draconian circumstances. I think the book is relatively self-aware and the framing device and the gossamer girls are supposed to be a subversion or almost a parody. That being said, I think it is partially genuine which made the book tiresome to me. I think it fetishizes sadness, and I don't need a book to be totally with it on current mental health directives, but with the target audience of vulnerable young girls, it feels more exploitative than artistic. I'm probably too old for this book, but I'm glad I read it for its interesting prose and status as a cultural touchstone.