This seems to be one of those books that a reader will end up enjoying, even though the writing style may not immediately pull one in. Little Eliza is a charming-enough child, and in this day and age when divorces and blended families are common, it does not seem all that unusual for the father to be missing. The mother's bizarre stories to explain the father's absence might be a way of protecting the child, but the mother is bizarre in general: always writing notes in the form of lists to her daughter. The two godmothers and their annual trips as well as the 13-years-later chapter make the story more interesting. However, the sudden solution to Eliza's life crisis at age 30 is just too much of a fairy tale.