I read O Caledonia because Maggie O'Farrell said she made friends with a person on the sole basis that it was her favourite book and I love Maggie O'Farrell's work. It's very good on a girl's teenage, and before, years and very good on crumbling castles and I laughed many times, but I think I was expecting a Maggie O'Farrell novel (not a sensibile expectation when it isn't written by her) with more richly tangled lives. So although I loved the unfortunate things that happened to Janet and her refusal to be daunted by any of them, and the wonderfully convincing idea that when you're young you either have to be good (do what the adults expect you to do) or defy the adults (and live, in Janet's case, through novels and poetry and other languages) I wasn't convinced by the ending and didn't feel either sorry or sad. Which I wish I had ... .