For a large portion of this book I really thought it was going to be a 5 star read. All of the time spent building up this world, and the characters that inhabited it, knowing it was leading to something happening, was all fantastic. I was engrossed by it all. 

Then, the thing happened. 

And it was not the thing I had assumed was going to be the thing. Which wasn't really a problem, because it was a pretty massive bomb to throw into the middle of this established world. The actual problem was what came next, which was unfortunately very little. 

I understand that the story is being told from Lily's point of view, as this child outsider, brought into this strange world of adults, and when things kick off and she is excluded from the families lives, she doesn't know what's happening. But that's where the book falls down for me, because it just returns to the present and drops a paragraph here and there to fill in years at a time. 

And I understand the idea that maybe that's the point of the book, how Lily's life was so changed by that friendship, and those people, but she was never as big a part of their lives as they were of hers. But it ultimately ends up feeling like a book that is brilliant for about two thirds, and then the author just wanted to wrap it all up. A very flat ending, I thought.