The author had an interesting idea for a story but I don't feel like he took it anywhere. The book is a first-person account by a high-school age girl who is living with her Italian grandparents in New York City after her father and brother have died and her mother has disappeared for parts unknown. She tells a fairy tale to a group of first-graders about a girl with a bunch of brothers who have all been turned into swans by an evil stepmother. The girl from the fairy tale is able to turn all but one of the brothers back into humans but is forced to leave one brother as mostly human but with a single swan wing instead of an arm. When the girl gets home after reading this story, she finds the brother with the wing of a swan perched outside her window. She tries to hide him, protect him, and finally release him - all with varying degrees of success. I am not sure what I expected, but the way this story went was not it. The girl's relationship with her classmates and grandparents was well written but I did not feel like adding this swan-boy to the story made the story better, just confusing. Rather than ending, the story just seemed to peter out. I guess I just expected more.