"...there is a contagious energy to Gunning's prose which
often -- and accurately -- delineates Mallory's intense emotional
improvisation, child-like perspicacity and surprisingly mature
realizations. Marketed as adult fiction, this is a book that could very
easily attract a younger crowd, hungry for the extremes of experience
and sensation Mallory represents."
- The Globe and Mail
“Margaret Gunning writes with uncanny grace and
unflinching clarity about what it is to be a young girl forgotten by the
world. She captures the heartbreak of loneliness and separateness, the
fear and self-loathing of adolescent girlhood, with a gentle,
sympathetic touch. And she manages to make Mallory complex and fully
human in the process -- both victim and torturer, brilliant yet
painfully naive, innocent yet seething with awakening sexual desire. The
ominous feeling that underscores much of the novel is reminiscent of the
best work of another Canadian author, Ann-Marie MacDonald, whose girl
heroes seem to inhabit this same dark world.”
- The Edmonton Journal
