I like Alice Hoffman books, with their subtle magic, darkness and everyday lives. I had forgotten that she also wrote young adult fiction, so when I ordered this one, it looked more like a novella.

It’s a sad book, the story of a 15 year old girl, whose parents and sister head into the city one day and are killed in a bombing that seems to mirror 9/11. Whilst the people around her deal with their grief by becoming suspicious, or numbing their pain, Green finds other ways to deal with it, which ultimately save her.

Like most Alice Hoffman books, it reads partly like a fairy tale, in this case, Green has a gift for making things grow, and partly like ordinary life, people dealing with everyday emotions. Written in the first person, it’s quite dreamlike, and it’s also very short. It feels like a personal study of grief and loss.

Read It If: It might please any Alice Hoffman fans. I feel like it might not be meaty enough for modern young adult readers, though I did really enjoy it.