A book where I guess you could say the concept defeats the execution. It's one of those drawn-in diary narratives, shared between three girls at middle school who want to write in very unplanned manner a fantasy of them in an alternative world, facing multiple Battle Royale fights and the conquest of something or someone dark. All have their own fonts and styles, so the main one wants to get her own way with the narrative (and clearly heroine billing) (and also sympathy for being a one-winged orphan character in the new world of the book), the second one is much more methodical, scientific and logical, and the third is so busy with lacrosse and other hobbies it's all she can do to half-fill in blank lines left for her character's contribution; if the other two authors come up with a list of three utterly unique paths for the journey to take, she will decide to vote for all three.

I think this is nicely meta, and it really does manage to get a lot out of combining the real life of the girls – the fixation on a celebrity influencer and her daughter at the same school, a Night-at-the-Museum styled school trip – with the world of their novel. If scientific one sees her character's smarts ignored, she herself takes umbrage and it's both the authors and their characters working through the issue at the same time. But does that make any of this inherently entertaining? Not really. The real world problems are dull, the fantasy book is clearly as naff as naff can be, and beyond the three approaches to life and the book that the three lasses have there is little in the way of real character.

Seldom do you get a series opener this weak, for it clearly will revolve around the shtick of what is on page in their fiction being a mirror to what is on page through their real life. And this instance of it needed a ton more oomph, and a kick up the arse to both the fantasy world and the real world mysteries. I finished this and I still don't care a jot why the old woman was staring at the canvas across the corridor. Only buy this if that kind of thing sounds like a gripping plot point for the people you buy tweenage novels for. Because it doesn't me.