This book's formula is familiar--girl goes on a quest in a magical world with a boy she isn't sure she can trust in order to save her lost father--but the key is how the author handles it and Tahereh Mafi absolutely knows what she's doing. It's a book for younger readers and the language and general tone is aggressively whimsical. That sort of thing can get annoying if it's too much or if it gets in the way of taking anything seriously, but the emotional stakes always struck me as completely believable. At one point the main character suffers a humiliation that left me getting all teary on the subway--it's exactly the type of thing that could absolutely happen to a real girl where the magic involved barely matters.

I also was impressed with how the author kept me guessing about what her traveling companion might really be up to and whether or not Alice or I should trust him. Often in this sort of set up the guy's real agenda seems kind of obvious and he's made super hot in order to make up for it. Oliver in this book is, I believe, very handsome, but as Alice is only 12 and more interested in a friend than a boyfriend--and the people in her world don't exactly conform to real world beauty standards (they're very brightly colored) Oliver's dreaminess never comes into it.

As with any trip through a magical world on a quest the characters pass through one whimsical land to another, but the story always hung together for me as a story rather than a series of stops with a challenge at each stop.