Olivia is a sad, lonely child. Once the youngest child in a family of four, her older brother died, her mother left, and now she lives with only her father. Her father is a building superintendent, but one who is not very good at the job, so they have to move frequently.
Olivia has to see the school counselor regularly because she behaves strangely and her father is worried about her. But in the new building where she is living, there is one boy who seems really nice, who might become a friend. However, everyone else in the building is absolutely nutty... they all seem like they could be characters from "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Same type of outlandish, not very nice people the children in that series were always encountering.
Accept the weird, and accept the supernatural, which is an element of the book, and you can enjoy an entertaining, though uneven, tale. ( )

Huh. I did like it, and I did read it one sitting, but I'm not sure I'm interested in a whole series. It certainly seemed complete unto itself. As I was reading I was thinking, first, that it's like nothing I've read before, then I was wondering where I'd read this kind of thing before, and by the end I was thinking that Neil Gaiman was, for some odd reason, writing books like [b:Coraline|474073|Coraline|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1232033712s/474073.jpg|2834844] or [b:The Graveyard Book|2213661|The Graveyard Book|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1303859949s/2213661.jpg|2219449] under a nom de plume. It also reminded me a bit of [b:The Beastly Arms|3450624|The Beastly Arms|Patrick Jennings|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1268012584s/3450624.jpg|1516545]. ( )

I can't help myself; I hate books like this. I'm always looking for some easy reading material for my grade six students who are super young so I pick up books like this, hoping it will suit their maturity level, but then I read them and I'm so disenchanted with the silliness of them that I almost don't want to put it on my shelf. However, maybe this book will be like the "Captain Underpants but for girls. I just found it really, really silly and much too far fetched to be even mildly enjoyable. ( )

I had to read this book after reading Moonbot was going to be involved with bringing Olivia Kidney to the screen. Like Moonbot, this is a unique book. For a book with a main storyline of death (two significant characters), it is funny but thoughtful. There are odd situations and characters that just are. A handyman father who is a clutz and a see-thru ceiling are just two of them. The best way to describe this book - a comfortably strange book. ( )

Wonderful fun. Not as much pure magic as I generally care for, but with all the wild characters and situations, it's a great ride. PS -- on second read it's just as good! one of the reviewers called it refreshing, and that's just what it is -- so original and weird and and funny with a very light touch. A play on many different kinds of storytelling. ( )