I find Ellen Hopkins' verse novels to be compulsively readable, but I thought this one's poetry wasn't as good as that in Crank and Glass. Additionally, the story was so much similar to Carol Lynch's The Chosen One that I couldn't help thinking how I preferred The Chosen One. The ending was unexpected and far too abrupt. Mature language and themes. 
 It did make me want to start a booklist around a certain type of character: the outcast/hermit who reforms the main character by introducing him/her to the benefits of hard work, homespun wisdom, and country living. While I was reading about Aunt J in this book, I thought of several others, but now I'm blanking out. Anyone? 
 Favorite quotes: 
 [on the effects of reading literature:] "I began / To view the world at large / through borrowed eyes, / eyes more like those / I wanted to own." 
 "They say the world sees you / As you see yourself, / and that night I saw myself in a different way. / Pretty. Almost desirable."