The basic premise is quite intriguing. A girl shows up in a family's vacation house. Everyone assumes that she's there with another member of the family, so she just kind of hangs around and affects them all. I quite enjoyed that premise, but I didn't find the book itself too compelling. I didn't care that much about the main family, and if, at any point in my reading, you had taken the book away from me and told me that I could never find out what happened next, I wouldn't have cared.
Until like six pages before the very end of this book, I was irritated by two unresolved questions. Then one of them was suddenly and cleverly addressed. It wasn't answered or resolved, but it was addressed and in a way that made me go "Cool!" The other was left unresolved though, which bothered me.
What's interesting about this book is it's set just a couple of years ago - in 2003, I think. There are passing references to current events, which I recognize, but I don't know whether people will recognize them in 10 years. (For example, a description of the Abu Graib photos, mentioned in passing as being on a newspaper page without any explicit identifiers.) I guess it's a risk on the part of the author, but it will be interesting to see whether these things hold up.
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