Quick: Where's the Crook to Get Her Offstage?

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill kept me up all night.

It's the story of an 11/12/13 year old girl growing up in Montreal's red light district. She's got a junkie father, dead mother, and lots of neighborhood friends. Sort of Maniac Magee for grown ups. And without the race stuff.

It's a beautiful book: chock full of interesting images and insights. It reads like you're in a mystical child's head.

BUT-- the last eighth almost ruins it. It turns into a saccharine, weirdly Victorian social novel. Duex Ex Machinas creak around, and I half expected the kid to succumb to opium addiction or willful drowning.

AND-- by that point, I was gritting my teeth because there is a metaphor in LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PARAGRAPH. The metaphors are beautiful and true and blah blah, but they're also coming so fast it's a fucking metaphor blizzard.

The novel is definitely worth reading-- I got it out of the library and am thinking of buying it just to see it on my shelf. But O'Neill, couldn't you have kept it together for fifty extra pages? Or just chopped them off wholesale? Not everything needs to be tied with a bow. It's ok to just stop if the character's arc is over. There needn't be redemption and hope and coming together and all that Happy Holiday crap.

I wish I had stopped before the last eighth, but otherwise it's the book I wish I'd been smart enough to write.