The author is clearly very well educated and is drawing upon that education as fodder for her book. While I applaud the author for cleverness--incorporating literary references, Latin, French, and world history into the book--I am afraid to say that all this cleverness does nothing to help the book.

There is very little plot in this book and even less character development. The device the author relies on is a series of "day dreams" in which the author can showcase the aforementioned education. These "day dreams" are painfully unreadable. The book might have been salvaged (with the help of a very good editor) if the day dreams were removed and the author really focused on developing the main character and her struggle with the death of her mother. As it stands, the reader gets very little information about who the main character is, and less about mom. Thus, it is hard to care about either character or their story.

I'm sorry to say it, but don't waste your time. ( )