The beautifully tragic novel by XT

"I don’t know if I’m a girl dreaming about being a monster, or a monster dreaming about being a girl.”  ~ From the journal of Aubrey Clover

Fantasy and reality blur in the story of twelve-year-old orphan Aubrey Clover.  Born with a rare disfiguring bone disease, Aubrey believes she will transform into a monster on her thirteenth birthday.  Looking for a place to belong, Aubrey’s dream is to find Edward Scissorhands’ castle, before she has to leave society forever.

Two months before her birthday, after a lifetime of living in foster homes, Aubrey meets her father for the first time, an unstable man who lives vicariously through 1980s cop dramas, and is unable to accept a misfit daughter.  Living with him in a monotonous suburb, Aubrey can’t relate to her surroundings and doesn’t fit in at her new school.  Like Joseph Merrick (“The Elephant Man”), Aubrey feels tormented and as isolated as a girl on the moon.  She spends her time writing in her journal and writing poetic quotes on her shoe soles, watching monster B-movies, and searching for Edward’s castle. 

As her birthday approaches, the impending transformation, she wonders if her fantasies are the only place she will ever truly be accepted.  Or will she be rescued?

(Copyright © XT 2008, Mulberry Bark Publishing.  2nd edition reissue copyright © XT 2010.)

(The film Edward Scissorhands and the character Edward Scissorhands are copyright © Twentieth Century Fox and are used with permission.)