Terrace Story

by Hilary Leichter

From the author of the acclaimed novel Temporary, an intimate exploration of time, a fable about love, an epic daydream for a broken-hearted world

Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn't there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller's dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.

Terrace Story follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and the little family of three, their future now deeply uncertain, and those who orbit their fragile universe. The distance and love between these characters expands limitlessly, across generations. How far can the mind travel when it's looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing, and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?

Based on the National Magazine Award-winning story, Hilary Leichter's profound second novel asks how we nurture love when death looms over every moment. From one of our most innovative and daring writers, Terrace Story is an astounding meditation on loss, a reverie about extinction, and a map for where to go next.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 29, 2023

About the author

Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her writing has appeared in n+1, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, and her work in Harper’s Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotions often make space feel malleable: the way our heart can swell so full of love or grief we never thought possible or the way distances seem to grow or shrink from longing or emotional connection. Terrace Story, the second novel by Hilary Leichter, explores space from physical dimensions, metaphysical space and even outer space in a surreal and zany story that have a surprisingly cast emotional undercurrent. Structured across four stories that move in at various distances in orbit around the opening story of a mysterious terrace that appears where it shouldn’t, Leichter explores the distances between people and the ways they grow and shrink across lifetimes as well as the liminal spaces storytelling creates in order to hold entire worlds within. With an incredible emotional depth that can be just as sad as the story is playful, Terrace Story is a profound delight that makes us think of all the spaces we inhabit in our lives and the malleable spaces created by language.

‘ Inhabited space transcends geometrical space.’
―Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

The novel opens with a story of Anne and Edward, finding their emotional space growing with the birth of their daughter, Rose, but their physical space shrinking as financial woes back them into a small corner of an apartment. Yet, impossibly, a gorgeous terrace filled with ‘an outdoor kind of joy’ appears whenever Anne’s friend, Stephanie, visits. This story originally appeared in Harper’s Magazine (you can read it here) and has now been expanded to explore the spaces of those surrounding this incident, with linked stories that examine the lives, loves and losses of Anne’s parents, Stephanie, and, finally, Rose many years later. This collage of characters pulls us through many moments of joy and sadness, covering lifetimes of connections and betrayals, dreams and death.

An aspect of Leichter that will keep me reading anything she writes is how perfectly she can balance silly with sad and plumb incredible emotional depths even in the most bizarre of tales. Her previous novel, Temporary managed this quite effectively as well, and heart we find our heart swelling just like the ways Stephanie finds she can transform physical space with her mind. The surreal ability works in both a literal and metaphorical sense, being a perfect expression of how we often create ‘a place to put the wanting’ we feel in life, or the way with love we often ‘put it in someone else,’ or find it expanding (or contracting) into spaces we didn’t know existed before. Like how one can love a child with all their heart and then, with the birth of a second, discover they suddenly have double the love to share. Or the way memory makes time and space malleable, like when Stephanie finds ‘events that happened across months and formed a single continuous memory, erasing larger units of time,’ or wonders if all the memories of time spent with a lover was merely one moment or if she ‘had stretched Will across the story to make him last longer.’ The effect Leichter creates here is dazzling and as bittersweet as it is occasionally bizarre.

‘Who can remember with any accuracy life’s initial drift towards its final shape?’

There are some truly beautiful moments but, as a fellow student suggests about the ability to create space, is the act of creation balanced out by subtraction somewhere? Throughout these stories we often see more loss than growth, from the tragic amount of space that grows between Anne’s parents, or the fear of their own child that creates an impenetrable distance between Stephanie and her parents, and we see how more space can often be a sadness.

‘Their fear had shuttled into the space between who they actually were and who they had imagined themselves to be. Until now, they had not noticed any space between these two things at all.’

There were moments I found myself very choked up, even as I was delighted by the playfulness of these collected tales. Extinction is Anne’s mother’s expertise and we are often bent towards thoughts on how the space of absence that can also grow. The book takes place in its own frame of reality (or more than one), but the references to the extinction of things like crows makes us consider how our actions surrounding climate and growing space for people may be subtracting the life of the planet or space for animals.

‘When you are in a place that does not really exist, you can populate it with as many fables and legends as you like.’

Though perhaps my favorite aspect of this book is the way it shows the special space created by language and storytelling. Stories can contain entire worlds full of their own people complete with individual motivations, and I enjoyed the way a story about a King, Hermit and Queen that threads through the second part of the book creates an alternative space to examine the ideas going on within the larger story (also it had a very Jeanette Winterson-esque feel to it that made me happy). I love the way Anne and Edward have their own set of proper nouns for certain inside-joke ideas, the most important being the titular idea of Terrace Story which are stories they tell while on the terrace imbuing truth with fiction to create a whole imaginary reality while in the impossible space of the terrace. We also see how changing a proper noun, such as Edward to Eddie or Rose to Rosie implies a different angle towards that idea, with Anne fearing Stephanie’s alteration of Edward to Eddie might have an ulterior motive. It all becomes an excellent exploration on the malleability of language and the ways it shapes the world around us.

In short, Terrace Story really charmed me. Leichter’s tales come together for something strange and sad yet profound and penetrating in ways you don’t expect. It won’t be for everyone, but those who like to follow along an offbeat and destabilizing tale will find much to love here. It is an excellent look at family and the connection we have between each other, and does so in a fascinating way. An emotional ride, Terrace Story is a fun success.

4.5/5

‘That’s how quickly time was moving now. If you blinked, you missed an entire story. And stories seemed to stop before they’d even started, supported only at one end by the teller, then wobbled out carefully like a beam into the unknown’

[aly ☆彡 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels bizarre because at one point, I am enjoying the book, then also started to get confused before everything started to connect at the end like the threads of a tapestry weaving together.

I could understand if this book is not written for everyone to enjoy, but in Leichter's way of conveying the theme of love, memory, time and space - I'd say this is quite exciting. Despite its flaws, I think this is a wonderful read.

Further RTC.

[Melissa (Always Behind) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very, very odd book and definitely not for everyone.

This is a set of four interconnected stories dealing with the bigger themes of loss, family, and the space we occupy in the world. I can't say that I totally understand it, thus why I gave it three stars. I liked it, but this is a book that will mean something different to different people.

We start with a family of three living in a small apartment, when they invite Stephanie over, all of a sudden they have a large terrace. The terrace only appears when Stephanie is there, so they invite her over often, until something shocking occurs. Then the narrative switches, and the second story lost me. I found the thread again in stories three and four, but the tale is a bit too surreal, a bit too existential for my logical brain.

I'm not sure I'd call this magical realism, as the blurb suggests. I think it's more science fiction than anything, with a bit of fantasy thrown in.

That said, I did like it, and think it's very worth reading. It's not very long and it's fairly easy to follow, maybe you will get something different from it. It's certainly a uniquely told story.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is for the weirdos who like little books that do big things.

Imagine opening a closet door in your tiny apartment and finding, instead, that there's a terrace. Except, it only shows up when you friend Stephanie visits. That's what happens to Edward and Annie and their daughter, Rose/Rosie.

Smash cut to Lydia and George who are attending a funeral—for who? They can't quite remember—at a stunning home with a sweeping backyard and at the edge of the property, a folly in ruins. Their daughter, Anne, is there too and none of it really makes sense. Until it does.

I'll leave the rest for you to discover because much of the joy of this book is in its unwinding. The cogs are moving, we are but players in the game, and Hilary Leichter is playing god.

At once confounding and imaginatively playful, Terrace Story is a delight, a surprise, a literary gem. It will take you places you didn't even know existed. It will make you feel and chuckle and think, "huh...life is like that a lot of the time."

And it's that the strange and wonderful part of being human?

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of the first story, about Annie, Edward, Rose - and Stephanie.

In the UK’s first Covid lockdown, we were limited to an hour’s walk, run, or cycle per day. That was all the outdoor time you were allowed, unless you had a garden, but even with one, I craved what Leichter calls “an outdoor kind of joy”. I remember fierce debate about the ethics and legality of walking around town versus driving four miles to the woods where I passed almost no one.

There’s no lockdown in this story, but it was first published in June 2020 and the yearning for outdoor space is key. A young couple, with their credit cards maxed out, move to a tiny apartment with their baby. There’s a mix of love, disappointment, and hope, darkened by claustrophobia:
“The introverted windows were gated and clasped and huddled around a central shaft that Edward dubbed Pigeon Tunnel.”

However, when Stephanie visits, the closet door opens on to a gorgeous terrace:
“Stephanie was admiring a view that did not match the position of the apartment.”
The possibility of a better life beckons. But the story gradually becomes unsettling: little doubts and anxieties accumulating into something truly disturbing.


Image: Terrace of a relatively modest NYC apartment, with chairs, loungers, and small trees. (Source)

Note: The title doesn’t refer to what Brits call a terraced house, but an elevated, outdoor space; a place to dream and reinvent oneself, in part by telling “terrace stories”:
“Because when you are in a place that does not really exist, you can populate it with as many fables and legends as you like.”

Quotes

• “They were unharmed, unchanged, and caught in the embrace of a warm autumn evening.”

• “Grief is not the door that tucks you in; it’s the door that shuts you out.”

See also

• The first of four sections of this short novel was originally a short story in Harper's, which is what I read HERE. I enjoyed it, but it felt reasonably self-contained, and although I may read the other three, semi-standalone, parts I’m in no great rush. If you’re intrigued by the book, maybe read this first to help you decide.

• For another angle on multidimensional living space, see Heinlein’s And He Built a Crooked House, which I reviewed in conjunction with Edwin A Abbott’s Flatland, HERE.

• JL Borges was a progenitor and master of warping spatial and temporal realms, but his tales are less domestic than this (and certainly no one with the cutesy habit of “inventing proper nouns for their world”), which is perhaps why I prefer them. See my overview review HERE.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nonlinear novel with elements of surrealism but it sure won't seem like that to you when you start reading it. At times Leichter's prose is so straightforward and simple it doesn't seem like the kind of story where something out of the ordinary could happen. But her prose was one of the things I liked best.

I don't think this is really an interconnected stories book as much as people say, it is a novel in four parts and one of them is certainly more peripheral than the others, but it is all about the same thing. I really enjoyed how it started as almost a little game, and then gradually the book opened it up for us to see it from all kinds of new angles. (I cannot tell you what without ruining it, go in cold.)

[Daniel Shindler · Rating 5 out of 5]

“ ‘ Terrace stories,’ Edward whispered….’ They’re like little fables.Little fibs…You should do one next. It’s fun..’
Stephanie listened to their Terrace stories and wondered what parts were true. The truth was overrated, she realized. Knowing that certain parts were fiction, this was what filled her body with unexpected warmth. It was love, to recognize the inventions and inconsistencies that make a person whole.”

This passage is a guide to navigating a very imaginative creation. The novel is a fable like construct that explores spatial and emotional connections. It is sprinkled with a touch of magic realism and highlights the power of storytelling.The author employs words in a way that transforms abstract emotion to a visually accessible realm.At times, the writing reminded me of Jules Feiffer’s cartoons.

This multigenerational story is set in an unspecified time in the future. The text is divided into four sections of interconnected stories.The opening story anchors the plot, introducing Annie and Edward. They are a young couple whose emotional world has recently expanded with the birth of their daughter Rose. At the same time,they have encountered financial difficulties that have forced them to contract their physical world by moving into a claustrophobically small apartment.Improbably, whenever Annie’s coworker Stephanie visits them, their closet transforms into a lush and inviting outdoor terrace that enriches their world, opening heretofore unimagined vistas.

The terrace is a metaphorical vehicle that drives the plot beyond linear time. Upon stepping on to the terrace, time can expand or sometimes contract to prompt images and desires that occur beyond the scope of actual events. Within this framework, the remaining three stories interlink to examine the lives and inner thoughts of people connected to Annie, Rose and Stephanie.

Each section explores themes of estrangement, love, loneliness and loss that fuse with the ability to expand and contract both physical and emotional spaces. The opening passage in my review is a reminder that these stories can not be properly read through a strictly literal and chronological lens. Instead, the stories are a set of interconnecting puzzles that test the limits of imagination. In its broadest sense, the novel is a treatise on the uses of language and creativity that at times veers into alternative, off kilter realms. This journey may not appeal to all readers. However, those who persevere will be rewarded by an introduction to a view of connectivity and relationships that is startlingly unique. 4.5 rounded to 5 stars.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

hilary a genius

[nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

benadryl dream book

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

All around her the light and leaves were gold and soft, and the beauty settled in her chest the way beauty often did, transitioning from something seen to something felt, something both remembered and experienced at the same time.

▴▴▴
absolutely fucking brilliant. one of the things i adored about leichter's temporary is the way the story comes in waves, a beautiful pattern of the mundane, the painful, the surreal. bright little fragments connect unexpectedly.

and terrace story does this on another level. the first two chapters are like short fables, connected thematically, but do the characters overlap? it's hard to be sure of how it all fits together. but then the third chapter gives us a new perspective on the events of the first. and finally, the fourth story ties everything together. it shows us the larger context of all our characters and their fragile relationships.

Grief is not the door that tucks you in; it's the door that shuts you out.

▴▴▴
the story exists outside of time, often seeming to take place in the past, and often in the future. until everything clicks together, it seems almost circular. rose is the mother of lydia, lydia is the mother of anne, anne is the mother of rose. an infinite cycle of fractured mothers and daughters.

in the background there is a quiet sense of foreboding. casual mentions of disasters and extinctions. things cease to exist. we are vaguely aware that a collapse is occurring, but it's secondary to the rest of the story (much like in real life, right?).

also masterful is the way many of the minor characters are mentioned again and again. we see their lives played out briefly, beautifully, bittersweet little stories within the stories. histories, memories. and there's a matter-of-fact absurdity in leichter's writing that i absolutely love. it's funny and smart and sad. quietly profound.

The future and the past were on either side of a bridge, and no matter which way Rosie walked, the sun was in her eyes.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute stunner. Gonna need 5-10 business days to fully process.

[Obsidian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

This was a weird collection that worked. Everything is connected and the science fiction/magic realism bent worked. I will say some of the stories dragged a bit. That’s the main reason for the 4 stars.

Full Review: Hilary Leichter follows four different people/places/periods, but you are going to see some names appearing here and there and realize the connections between the stories. I honestly went back and re-read the stories in a chronological order after the fact.

"Terrace" follows married couple Annie, Edward, and their newborn daughter Rose. The three of them are in another tight cramped apartment, but one night Annie's coworker Stephanie comes over, and the door which usually opens into a closet, opens into a beautiful terrace. Annie does tests and realizes that the terrace is never there unless Stephanie comes over and opens the door. Quickly she starts having Stephanie over all of the time, but there seems to be something dark regarding Stephanie that Annie feels, but can't articulate. And then....

"Folly" follows married couple George and Lydia. They seem happy, but there is an underlying tension between them about who wins and who loses. And Lydia who is pregnant with their first child starts thinking about death and feeling as if she's trapped between dying first or dying after George. The whole storyline is a little bonkers and drags a bit. It takes to "Cantilever" for you to find out what happens there. You can guess though.

"Fortress" follows a young girl named Stephanie who has an amazing ability that seems to invite tragedy.

"Cantilever" follows an adult woman named Rosie who works at a space station called Gravity One. An older woman appears who Rosie can't help feel a need to talk to while also thinking about her girlfriend Kyle who is far away at the moment.

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's official -- Hilary Leichter has joined the pantheon of my personal very favorite authors of all time. I loved her debut novel Temporary, but I needed lightening to strike twice, and now it has.

I always feel like it is something of a cheat to say that a book is unclassifiable, but honestly this one is. It is a story in which physical space expands and contracts, time seems to move both forward and back, and people who are dead in one place are still living in another. But Leichter has the amazing ability to write such a story in a way that makes it still firmly grounded in the world of the real; quite a feat, if you ask me.

The novel unfolds in four parts. The first part "Terrace" is the story of Annie, Edward, and their baby Rose; and then Annie's coworker Stephanie comes into their lives. The second part "Folly" is the story of George and Lydia (Lydia's mother is named Rose), who then have a baby Anne; and in this part we get the fable of the king and the hermit. Part three is "Fortress," telling the life story of Stephanie -- the same Stephanie from part one -- and her little sister whom she loved so dearly and who passed away in a tragic accident. The final section is "Cantilever," set on a space station at some time in the future when many species have gone extinct on earth and life there has changed immeasurably. Here, a young woman named Rosie interviews an unnamed older woman (who was raised by her grandmother Rose).

Leichter's imagination borders on genius, I think I could recognize her distinctive prose anywhere, and she trusts in each reader to interpret the story for themselves. I'll be thinking on this one for a long time to come. I read this over a single 24-hour period -- could not put it down.

[Court Zierk · Rating 2 out of 5]

This kind of books make me feel like I’m too stupid to understand what really going on. Like I’m not in on the metaphor because I’m not enlightened enough to comprehend.

Feeling stupid isn’t necessarily the feeling I’m going for when reading in case you were wondering

[Amy Biggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this! I'm going to have to give the second story a re-read I think, but the other three will live rent free! Such an interesting set of interconnected stories about a girl with magical powers and the longterm effects she has on people in her orbit.

[Jace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I’m too dumb to understand this one. Had a cool concept to start with and then lost me 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this book hijacked itself. The title and summary leads you to believe it's about one thing, so when the second story starts, you're immediately thrown off and confused. The second story is also by far the weakest, and such a departure from what came before, that it almost derails the entire book. I have no idea why it was put there when it's so jarring to the plot's flow.

The latter half of the book almost rights the ship, because by that point you've realized it's actually interconnected stories and you have some idea what's going on. But the fact remains that the terrace of the title and the summary only cover the first 15% of the book.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the title, what Hilary Leichter has written is four interlocking stories, not one — each part fable and part, well, I don’t know what. I had been expecting a magical children’s book, but Terrace Story isn’t that at all. The book is unsettling in all the right ways, but it would be simply too easy to spoil the many surprises it contains. Let me just reveal that I enjoyed it very much, and I will be sure to appreciate every day with my loved ones.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Ecco in exchange for an honest review.

[Laura Icardi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written like a bad translation from another language by an under-educated woman who has spent too long on twitter, this shroom-induced pile of garbage is like a dream inside a fever dream, but with less internal logic, more plot holes, and a sprinkling of sci-fi right when it makes the least sense. I feel confused and motion sick. Absolutely no redeeming qualities.

[Meike]

Finally got my hands on this one...

[Renee Godding · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Grief is not the door that tucks you in. It’s the door that shuts you out."

Utterly impeccable... I need some processing time to search for the words in which to wrap my feelings for this one...

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed something in audio to keep me company while cleaning out a closet, and couldn't have latched onto something so perfect for that job. A closet that magically opens out to a terrace, ceilings raised to accommodate, and cramped spaces adjusted to allow for much needed space. While I don't usually choose fantasy, like my fiction a lot more grounded, this made what I was doing fly by. The wry voice of Xe Sands, narrator, fit the material to a T.

[Jen K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well crafted set of interconnected stories that examine love and grief stretched across time and space. Told almost like a fairy tale, Annie invites a colleague, Stephanie, to her apartment to meet her new baby despite being embarrassed of its small size. Yet when Stephanie opens the wardrobe, instead of clutter, she magically finds a gorgeous terrace to enjoy a beautiful day outside. Annie and Eddie are astounded and find that themselves quickly addicted to the terrace space that only appears when Stephanie visits. The rest of the stories add context to Annie and Stephanie and the events that transpire.

The reader is required to suspend belief a bit and just enjoy how the stories unfold. I enjoyed each story which included tales of castles, funerals and the complications of relationships and love across death and time. I loved how the ending came together. I've had Leichter's earlier book on my to read list and will definitely move it up the list. Her language and characters are well crafted. I felt is if I knew them or were them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy.

[Cari · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like quirky books so the synopsis of this one held great promise for me. But for a short book at 190 pages, it felt boring. I think overall, this book was uncertain what it wanted to be. Or maybe it was just lost on me. I found it difficult to understand — I mean two people come home from a funeral but can’t remember who died. What is that about? The story never explains. I also found it difficult to connect with any of the characters. I’ve seen mixed reviews so I suppose some will like this but for me, I put it down with great hope that my next book will be amazing.

[Desiree Reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

Adultery, a same sex reference, and just plain weird. Bailed at 34%

[Bob Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book to start the new year with! Weird, surreal but...true?, surprisingly heart-warming but not maudlin, this book is a breath of fresh air. It's amazing that a novel with the multiverse at its heart is really about familial connection and, really, disconnection.

Stephanie's character in particular is just heartbreaking. Burdened with a gift/talent, she feels responsible for the death of her sister, her parents clearly fear her and barely want anything to do with her, her only adult relationships result in betrayal, until finally she meets this family and her power expands and rather than making space where there is none, she has opened a closet door into a parallel universe. In a desperate move, Stephanie closes the door to her world and traps herself, her friend's husband, and Rosie her friend's daughter in the alternate universe. They cannot get back.

The last section of the book, the one set on a space station? finds Rosie all grown, working for Space Suburbs, and she is interviewing an old lady who traveled from the other dimension to see if she's fit to...live in a space apartment? Through the interview it becomes clear the older woman is Rosie's mother who has finally found a way to travel from the other dimension. "Please take care of my daughter," she says on the last page of the book (the NYTimes review somehow thought she was Rose's granddaughter grown up?). This interview was charming and emotional for the reader while revealing nothing to Rosie and remaining unsentimental. It was a fair bit of skilled high-wire writing.

Wonderful, wonderful book.

[Maya Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd one... but I think I liked it... even though I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I thought the writing was actually quite good and I liked how the story was told from one perspective and then explained through another, but it sort of lost me with where it went at the end. This may be a novel that I like better upon reread, so maybe one day I'll do that.

3.5 stars

[alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not at all what I was expecting. Loved this, loved this loved this. Just exactly my type of book, and a fast enough read that I’d recommend it to basically anyone.

I do wish it had stayed weirder in parts, but also I wish that about every single book.

[Macarena O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estamos a 29 de enero y puede que sea mi libro favorito de todo el 2026.
Increíble desde todos los puntos de vista: imaginativo, narrativo, descriptivo, literario. Hilary Leichter es una auténtica maestra hilando palabras, historias, arcos argumentales. 💛

‘La sensación de recordar algo que había sido olvidado adrede. La sensación de olvidar algo que todavía no ha pasado’.

[Wyatt]

DNF @ 80%

Terrace Story is simply about a girl who can create space. I didn't know much about the story when I started this novel, which was quite a mistake. All I knew was that it was a very strange novel centering about one girl, named Stephanie. Right away, one will not feel as connected to the book if you don't know exactly what it will be about. I just felt like the story didn't do a good job explaining itself. I simply just didn't know what was happening, leading me to become bored, leading me to not finishing the book. I did, in fact, enjoy the character development and the characters in general, they all felt rather enjoyable. The time jumps and loops definitely confused my brain. All in all, Terrace Story felt like a good idea, but it felt unfinished.