In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

[viridian5]

I finally had to give up on Catherynne M. Valente's In the Night Garden. Its frame is an outcast girl telling Tanith Lee-like stories to a sultan's son, all of which seem to lead to a particularly villainous wizard (at least in the part of the book I got through), but the story can't pick up much momentum from how almost every character inside the story stops the plot dead to tell a story about his or her past. It frustrated the hell at me. For example, at one point the girl tells the sultan's son a story in which the prince hears the story of a girl who was a goose who tells the story of a firebird who tells the story of a gardener who's a tree who tells the story of a boy who became a wizard's apprentice after seeking Death.

This kind of thing happens constantly, and some of the characters I didn't want to know any more about, thanks. I hit the point where I couldn't take all the roadblocks anymore.