Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I'm surprised at the lower average rating for this book. I found it poignant, honest, and real. I think the prose style writing was brilliant and the best way for Maisie who finds art the best way to get her emotions out and escape the horrors for her daily life. I felt like I really got to know Maise and understand exactly what she was dealing with through her eyes. I loved getting to know the characters too, who helped Maisie along the way. This is a heartbreaking story with light at the end of the tunnel. In the author's own words, "we never know who or what will rescue us, or how we will rescue ourselves"

I have mixed feelings about this book.

Things I loved: the book is written in a verse format that I thought I wouldn’t like but ended up thinking worked incredibly well and made the perspective of the main character, Maisie, particularly “real” to me. I liked the way the story flowed from chapter to chapter, almost as though the chapters were an afterthought but also gave meaningful structure to the whole.

Things I didn’t love: the characters, including Maisie, although authentic enough, were not very likable. I found it hard to get very invested in what happened to any of them. Even Maisie and Davy who are clearly abused and traumatized by an out-of-control mother are not portrayed in a way that makes me really care deeply about their outcome. For me, the pacing was off and while I enjoyed the beginning and ending, I found the book very sluggish and almost repetitive in the middle.

I recommend this book if you are interested in the first person verse form deployed in a particularly effective way or prefer themes of family dysfunction, emotional and physical abuse amidst teen coming-of-age stories. For those who are sensitive to these issues, there are a fair number of triggering scenes in this book.

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for this eARC.

This book was so much... I’m not sure I have words for it. Maisie is a complex character. One that you both love and are frustrated by on every page.

Written in verse, Maisie’s story goes quickly and is hard to put down. If you’ve ever been in a dysfunctional family, if you’ve ever been a confused teen, this novel will speak to you and stay in your head.

I see I liked this book better than the other two reviewers here so far. When I read YA books, I generally keep in the back of my mind a scale that rates the book as to how relevant I think it might be for any of my students. With this book, I wasn't entirely sure which students would find interest in the book and perhaps purpose to go on the adventure. Being an art teacher, I guess I was won over by Maisey's love of art. I didn't feel the protagonist took good care of her friends. In fact, she seemed far more likely to neglect them than to nurture them unless she had something to gain. The "verse" of the book that others have complained about was not a problem for me at all. Since it is free verse it is quite easy to read and no problem whatsoever. Never did I feel that it took from the story at all. But then again, it didn't really add to it either. I did enjoy the story. I would not have wanted a best friend like Maisie even though in the end, her determination was admirable.

My biggest difficulty with this book is that I'm generally not a huge fan of books written in verse. However, it was a very wrenching portrayal of a girl with an abusive mother, just trying to get by.

1.5*
I did not enjoy this book…at all. I wanted to (because I love stories told through free verse) and I tried (I did not abandon it even though I really, really wanted to be done).
It was not all bad…

What I liked:
References to Art/Artists and museums of NYC; references to Hungarian culture/traditions; some of the chapters are really great—I especially enjoyed the letters between the characters—and Maisie has a sarcastically, witty mouth.

What bothered me:
Such a slow plot—I was so bored. None of the characters are likeable and I could not care less about what happened to them. Maisie and Rachel are both shallow and have the same arrogant, angry voice. The parents are terrible—Judith is an over-the-top hideous person. I don’t consider this a historical 1960s novel—the time period did not add anything to the storyline and the story would not change outside of that time.