I read Whistling Past the Graveyard a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it as a quirky coming of age story set in the south. I looked forward to reading The Myth of Perpetual Summer, expecting this story to be in a similar vein. However, this reads more like a mystery and I found the plot and characters contrived. Tallulah, the protagonist, does not feel believable in the portions where she is a ten year old child, she simply feels like a less bitter version of her adult self. There are a lot of characters in Myth and it "muddies" the story. Some of Crandall's descriptions of New Orleans and Mississippi are lovely but were not enough to hold my interest in the book and I did not finish it.