The book delves into the singular life of Miranka. A young girl who lives in a house with chicken legs. Her grandmother is a yada and a guardian of the Gate between the world of the living and the other. Miranka has been entrusted to become the next guardian after her baba’s time is over. The only issue is, Miranka dreams of a normal life and not one where she has to light candles in skulls at night around the house to alert the new dead that the gate is in there.

The book is fast paced and adventure driven, which I like, but it also focuses on the character development and her feelings. Miranka’s desire to live a life on her own term is conflicting with the family tradition that have been there for centuries. She doesn’t know how to come to terms with her dilemma so instead she broods over the learning of becoming a yada and resents the house in which she feels confined. Her growth starts when one day she ventures the surroundings a bit farther that she is allowed to, and stumbles on a boy her age she then befriends. The next day they agree to meet up and go the city. However when the day comes, she wakes up in another country. From then on, she loses control over her emotions and ends up making a chain of poor and selfish decision, including hiding a young dead girl in her room, sneaking out, lying to her Baba and hating on the house. Miranka’s actions are expected. She is only 12 years old. She befriends a dead young girl, Sarah, despite the fact that the longer a dead stays out in the living world the more likely they are to be lost forever. As Sarah fades away Miranka is so blinded by her joy to have a companion that she ignores completely that her friend is disappearing. Miranda battles against what is right. From her perspective, she only wants a friend. It raises the question: can we fulfill our desire no matter what? The book dives into the notion of consequences; the ones that cannot be fixed and it broadens the idea of freedom, identity and acceptance through a tale. It is intelligent and imaginative.