Maybe because what it's doing is actually quite rich and complicated? I dunno, often when I get annoyed by having a book explain itself at me, it's at least partly because it's obvious, but also partly because it's just not that interesting. But this was very . . . dense and sort of prickly and complicated. Like adolescence.

I feel I missed something about this book, though. Something about the stylistic point-of-view choices she made, and the way she slipped into and out of fairy tale mode, and *hand gestures*. I think there was something very clever there that I didn't get.