For me, this turned out to be some much-needed development on Sumi and her love of Confection.

At first the story was a little hard to get into: unlike other Wayward Children books, Sumi’s life on Earth is not completely anathema to who she is as a person. She has a fraught relationship with her brother, no friends, but loving parents and a love of learning, books, the violin, and many other things. She isn’t looking for an escape and that felt almost tragic when I thought about what this would have been like for her parents. This is also the first WC book I’ve read since becoming a parent, though, and I can feel my perspective shifting on the whole concept. The idea of my child just disappearing one day is terrifying and I suspect I’ll struggle to separate from that with any of these books where the kids aren’t straight up escaping from abuse.

Putting that aside, my point is that I was wondering for a while why Sumi’s journey to Confection felt jarring until it became clear that was the point. Sumi is not the typical Wayward Child. She did not need Confection: Confection needed HER. This is a really interesting juxtaposition compared to the other narratives in this series where the child’s entrance into a new world is almost frictionless. Sumi is nothing but friction, even when she embraces that Confection is where she wants to be. I found this increasingly enjoyable and I particularly liked getting a look at the real Sumi rather than the Sumi from previous books who is overcompensating her own Nonsense in order to get back to Confection. Someone who was never my favorite character became significantly more developed over the course of the novella. Considering the ending, I’m really hoping that the next installment is about Sumi’s return to Confection alongside our other favorite Wayward Children.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Edit: Actually, looking back I can see I’ve read two other WC books since becoming a mom, but one of them was Nadya’s (who I was rooting to get away from her awful adoptive parents) and the other was the ongoing quest narrative.