“How awesome it would be if one of them spotted her, and she could introduce them to her mother as ‘my friend’.“

I CRIED YALL. There are few books that i can claim i full-on bawled while reading that I couldn’t see the pages anymore…. but this is one of them.

The story is built around these children that find that they can enter their mirrors and be transported to a place with a castle. However, there are rules entering this place because of course, something like that can’t last forever.

This is the kind of portal magic/magical realism that leaves a lot to be explained and focuses a lot more on the characters themselves. It is in that Japanese style of writing that is a little straight to the point and sometimes the writing felt off but I feel that has to do more with the translation than the actual writing since this was originally written in Japanese. Don't get me wrong though because i did love the writing aside from the pacing, it made the story feel that much more raw and real, that you cannot help but see either parts of you or your friends in them. That’s how it was for me at least.

I do have reservations about some parts of the story and how it all ties together but in the end, the character developments and relationships just hit a little deeper than I thought it did… that I couldn’t help but feel the emotions by the end. I buddy read this and we both agree that, no matter how slow u initially find it, u get to a certain point in this book and just cannot help but marathon it to the end.

My favorite part is how the story so successfully highlights the unique friendship built over friends you meet when you are “young” and are just starting to figure out your place in the world. Part of the characters interactions, as they are mostly middle school aged, is how complicated these friendships can be to navigate at times but also the unlikely friends and memories you make when you’re “forced” to spend a certain amount of time with people in school (or some place else