Hazel doesn't really fit in with most of the kids in her new school. But that's OK because she does fit in with her best friend and next-door neighbor, Jack, and he makes sure to meet up with her every day during recess, making the rest of her day bearable. Jack and Hazel are each other's refuge -- he needs one from the home that holds his depressed and empty-eyed mother and she needs one from what would probably be too difficult a rejection to bear: her father's recent choice to leave Hazel and her mother for a new life.
So, even though Jack has stopped being "Jack," and is now callous and uninterested in Hazel, when he goes missing, Hazel knows it's her job to find him. And that's where the story becomes a tedious slog. What was a vivid and honest depiction of how it feels to be sad and lonely in grade school becomes a Forrest Gump-style tromp through the fairy tale woods. There's a white witch who jokingly offers Turkish Delight, red ballet shoes that dance their wearer to death, wolves to frighten, and birds to point the way, and kindly couples that take you in and then refuse to let you go.... I was bored and frustrated by its end.
Ursu created a couple of great child characters. They experienced the pain of real life and the joy of real friendship. Why jank it up with second-rate fantasy thriller rip-offs?
C-
