Explicabo tenetur nihil debitis minus.

I love prequels. I love the self-consciousness of them, how they play with reader knowledge and expectations. I didn't expect to like this one so much, and honestly, in itself it was really only a four. It was McKay's brilliant handling of this as a prequel to the Casson novels that bumped it to a five, that and how she made me finally like Caddy. I've never cared for Caddy. She's sort of airheaded, in some ways like her mother Eve, but unlike Eve, I get the sense that Caddy is doing it on purpose. Caddy Ever After didn't do anything to change my impression, but then, how could it, since Caddy was practically Sir Not Appearing In This Book. Caddy's World is set six years before Saffy's Angel, the year that Rose is born and Caddy is twelve. It was strange to see Caddy, who previously seemed so free of connections, to be part of a tightly-knit gaggle of girls who've been friends since they were four and five. Unlike the other girls, who all have their own identities (i.e. Alison who hates everyone) Caddy's title "bravest of the brave" is in Caddy's mind an honorary title, since she isn't brave about anything but spiders, which to her aren't scary at all. Caddy's braveness becomes evident, though, as she turns out to be the one who has to face reality for everyone else. Whether it's being the first of the friends to admit that their lives are changing, or telling her friends that they've all been dumped by their communal boyfriend, or facing the fact that her new baby sister may not survive, Caddy's bravery is something that's only obvious to everyone but herself. The most interesting example of this is when Caddy risks her own life to pull her friend Ruby out of the path of a speeding truck, because the true act of bravery is that she immediately pushes Ruby into the path of a metaphorical truck Ruby's avoided throughout the book, namely Ruby's admission to an elite school that will take her away from her friends. Caddy more than once risks her friends hating her