What an astonishingly boring book. I turned it into a challenge to see just how fast I could read without completely losing track of what happens. It turns out that I can read this book pretty fast because nothing at all happens. The bouncing perspectives and timeline would have made the uneventful storyline interesting, but as the characters never change and are fairly non-descript I was continually bemused about who was talking and when we were. I found the poetic style lollopy and uneven, the only thing shining out being the children's twisting of language. Epically boring and completely uninspiring. ( )