It sometimes sort of is – like when you go to bed in tears, and wake up in the morning, and things are looking brighter. Maybe she should have said sadness, rather than grief…or left it out completely.

I’d never heard of The Thief of Always before – I looked it up on the ever-handy book blogs search, and it sounds like a much creepier Phantom Tollbooth. I’ll have to pick it up next time I’m at the library. I think if I try any of Valente’s other books, I am going to use your strategy of reading it over a nice long period of time.

I love MirrorMask – it’s one of my desert island films! But Palimpsest isn’t much like MirrorMask really; the alternate world of Palimpsest seems much bleaker to me than the world of Helena’s drawings. The similarity is that sort of drifting, dreamlike feel that it has for the characters. I could practically hear the MirrorMask soundtrack playing in my head when I was reading this book! (Though that may have been because Nymeth mentioned the two of them together, in her review.)

What you said about places that try to make you happy being creepy reminded me of The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. I need to read that again.