So while I was reading this book a couple people asked me what it was about and having not prepared a booktalk for it (or even finished it), I usually started by saying, "Well there's this teenage girl who goes to live in England and she falls in love with her cousin and a war breaks out and she's anorexic." That makes the book sound terrible.

Really any list of things that happen in this book (incest, eating disorders, terrorism, an evil stepmother, magical psychic children) can make it sound terrible. What makes it not terrible is the voice of the narrator, the quality of the writing, and this overall unapologetic attitude the book gives off. It doesn't apologize for the incest, the anorexia, the terrorism, or the magical psychic stuff. And because the book is strongly written I didn't find myself questioning the author's choices or being grossed out or offended.

I really really liked this book. ( )

FROM AMAZON: "This is a story about love.

"It's also a story about hate, which is why I left New York in the first place. You don't fly halfway across the world to live with a bunch of people you never met, just for a laugh.

"I guess if I'd known where it was all going to lead, I might have thought twice about stepping onto that plane. I might have worried a little more about Edmond being my cousin.

"And me being 15.

"But I didn't. And in the end, those things didn't matter as much as you think they would.

"In the end, the world had bigger things to worry about than us."

DNF at 48%. ( )

It bored me. I had to force myself to finish it, such a shame :/ ( )

Because the events and the writing are quite surreal, and there are aspects of the story that don't quite make sense, I spent a lot of the time wondering whether Daisy was a reliable narrator. (She is) Even though it is set in the future, the novel has a Kids Evacuated to the Country in WWII feel to it. Contemporary technologies such as mobile phones and emails exist, but none of them work because of the war. I found the abrupt transition into Part 2 unsettling and thought it jarred with the flow of the story. For me, in the overall, Part 2 didn't work as well.

But it's definitely original and memorable and I enjoyed the writing very much. So 4 stars. ( )