PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThough Tanner’s efforts both to unlock the door of Lena’s past and to make way for a happy ending combine for a deus ex machina effect, she describes Lena’s trauma well ... Elsewhere, Tanner’s prose tries unsuccessfully to capture both precociousness and halting English. Why is it that pint-size protagonists must charm their grown-up readers with a prodigious vocabulary? ... Still, we come to believe in Vaclav’s determination and Lena’s longing ... When the magic enchants, we can ignore the machinery protruding from behind the curtain.
Isabel Allende
PanThe New York Times Book ReviewUnfortunately, love’s intoxication, like the scent of the gardenias Ichimei sends Alma over many years, fails to lift this new novel above its thin plot and weakly motivated characters.
