Alice Queensmeadow was born "white as milk"--without any pigment--in Ferenwood, where color is magic and reigns supreme.
As "smart and lively and passionate" as 12-year-old Alice is, she doesn't make sense to anyone in Ferenwood. In this fantastical world where people are as bright as planets, Alice feels alone, even with her green-haired, brown-skinned mother whom she loves, but can't really like, "a prune of a person" who is constantly threatening her with outlandish punishments like "whisking" her into an elephant. It didn't matter as much before Alice's beloved father abandoned her and her triplet brothers about three years ago, but when he left, "[t]he shock of loss unlatched her armor, and soon cold winds and whispers of fear snuck through the cracks in her skin...."
Alice careens wildly between brooding and optimism. Often she is full of joy, almost Pan-like. Her beaded, bejeweled clothes exhaust her, so she frequently removes them. She eats flowers without honey because she wants to taste them "unmasked," the taste of truth. She loves her body, "her favorite thing she ever owned," and dancing, "her ticket to greatness." In darker moments, she mourns her father and loathes 13-year-old Oliver Newbanks, her childhood nemesis who called her ugly. Alice's only hope of escaping her lonely existence is to win the Surrender, a contest that promises a way out of Ferenwood, adventure, maybe even a way to her father. With its fascinating heroine, companionable narrator, wit and Oz-like world-building, Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me; Unravel Me; Ignite Me) is a surprising, sensuous, delicious fantasy to devour like Alice devours flowers. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness