I’m kind of confused about this book. The tag line on the front says “Get your goth on.” The description on the back calls Philippa, the main character, a “goth girl.” And yet on page two Philippa explicitly states that she is, in fact, NOT a goth girl, and later in the book says that she wears black because it’s easy and doesn’t show dirt. Therefore the use of the word “goth” on the cover is inaccurate and unnecessary; I think you could have written a compelling blurb for the back cover without using a word that the main character herself insists does not describe her.

So I started off reading this with a bit of a negative viewpoint. That cleared up pretty quickly because McClymer’s writing drew me in, as did the plot: two weird twins advertise for their own nanny, who must love black, and Philippa applies for and is given the job. She spends the summer in their cliffside mansion, crushing on the hot gardener and trying to figure out how to inject a little fun into the twins’ lives – they are lonely, far too old for their age (10) and all but ignored by their businessman father. Philippa is dealing with her father’s remarriage, and she and the twins bond over the loss of their mothers, and together seem to be figuring out how to let a little color back into life.

The plot moves nicely along until the end, where several chapters seem to be lost. The end rushes into itself and really makes very little sense. It’s like a whole bunch of pages got lost at the printer. I  ended my reading feeling more negatively than I did when I started it, which is a shame, because McClymer really can write. I just wish she’d written some more at the end so the story wrapped up satisfactorily.