This was an exceptional YA book. It follows a pretty standard formula -- new girl comes to town, meets weird girl who spends a lot of time in the woods. School starts, weird girl is an outcast, new girl has to make a choice about whether to hang out with normal kids or the weird kid. However, Murphy gives this story much more depth. The characters are all fleshed out, even the grouchy Dad and the weird writing teacher, and you always get multiple perspectives on all the characters. The two girls wind up going in to the big city for a writing class and discover a bit about themselves but again it’s not the pat sort of self-discovery that I’d expect (possibly my expectations are just too low) and interesting things happen.