Wink Poppy Midnight

A fun romp for readers who like a good scare, this eerie novel is also a beautifully told story, and, like most fairy tales, it’s a bit unbelievable in places. The points of view are so well formed, we almost don't need the characters' names at the beginnings of chapters to know who's narrating. The novel also plays with ideas of gender. The ambiance vacillates nicely between soothingly calm and spooky, so that the calm sections almost lull readers (and characters) into a false sense of security. The spookiness is created skillfully, in part by odd details such as Wink's shorthand (such as calling her younger brothers and sisters "the Orphans") and best friends who dress alike in black skirts and striped socks, finish each other's sentences, and talk in unison.

Near-constant allusions to fairy tales adds nicely to the spookiness -- “I read the Orphans a fairy tale once called Giant, Heart, Egg”; "He was like the great horned owl with bloody talons in The Witch Girl and the Wolf Boy" -- as does the setting: "The light was now an eerie twilight blue, and the forest had gone dark"; "I ran my hand down the wall, and felt the velvet flowered wallpaper pucker under my palm. The faded red curtains were pushed back, floor to ceiling, framing the jagged edges of the broken bay window."