This review was commissioned by Harper Collins.

Romily’s world is a strange and beautiful place; a little girl so fascinating her father has made her the subject of his wildly successful children’s book series, she is whimsical and interesting and weird. The kind of girl who feels her strangeness keenly and vastly underestimates how interesting she is, she is the kind of person people want to know but she doesn’t realize it.

And that is all the good I can say about Romily’s life; the writing is beautiful and the novel textured, but her world is a sad and lonely place. Her father is there but absent, fascinated enough with her to use her as the subject of his books, but neglectful of her need for familial love and companionship, and there is more than one account of animal abuse in this book that was hard to read and felt unnecessary.