This was such an emotional read. I can't tell you how many times I cried while reading. I shed both happy and sad tears. The protagonist is an 11-year-old girl named Finley, who meets her grandparents from her dad's side for the first time. Her parents' marriage is falling apart, so they just drop Finley off at her estranged grandparents' house for the whole summer. Finley is devastated. She is afraid of her parents getting a divorce, so she turns to the one thing that makes her feel safe - her notebook. Finley writes little stories about the Everwood, a magical forest with all sorts of inhabitants (witches, pirates, trolls...). At the new house, she meets her 3 aunts and their children. It takes some time for her to accept her cousins but once she does, she quickly enchants them by telling them all about the Everwood. It's all fun and games until it becomes obvious Finley absolutely cannot handle being present in her life. She discovers things about her grandparents, her aunts, and their neighbors, and her carefully constructed fictional armor starts to crack. Will she be brave enough to face her reality in the end?
I thought this book was going to be a light, fun, almost beach read, but it is not. There are quite heavy, and important, topics discussed. Finley is very anxious, has panic attacks, and is probably depressed. She is a sensitive, dreamy girl, who constantly relies on her magical stories to get her through every event. Finely was incredibly relatable to me because I, too, was and still am a sensitive, dreamy person prone to anxiety. When Finley describes her feelings and thoughts, it almost reads like my high school diary. It was sometimes tough for me to continue reading simply because my vision was so blurry from the tears. Another thing that kept me shedding my crocodile tears was Finley's relationship with her grandparents. At first, she is weary of them. They seem so strict and scary. Grandma has her own set of rules that everyone obeys without question. She wants everything to be perfect. But Finley notices Grandma's mask slipping, her hands shaking, and her becoming more tired daily. Finley thinks Grandma might be sick. Indeed, Grandma has a myeloma, which is a type of blood cancer. She is getting chemotherapy for it but they are hiding it from everyone. Only Finley and her teenage cousin Avery know. That touched a sensitive spot in me because I lost both maternal grandparents to illness (one of them being cancer). I won't ramble anymore. All in all, good book but heavier than expected.