Rose Coffin, by M.P. Kozlowsky

Rose Coffin, by M.P. Kozlowsky (Scholastic October 2019), is a fun middle grade portal fantasy with a very interesting twist!

Rose is going through a tough patch.  An accident has left her twin brother is in a coma, and her parents have little time and energy to spend on her.  At school she's teased for her too-small clothes, and for blushing all the time, and so when the popular SallyAnn encourages her to audition as a singer for her band, Rose is thrilled.  But the "audition" is simply an excuse to get Rose off alone in the woods, to humiliate her utterly and record it all to share in school.

Rose can't make herself get on the school bus the next day.  Instead she takes off into the same woods, and her life is upended.  A walking tree person and a golden boy kidnap her, and take her into the magical realm of Eppersett, where she is hailed as the chosen one.  But don't role your eyes at this seeming cliché--in Rose's case, her bad luck continues, and being chosen one means she'll be the one who gets to be sacrificed to the Abomination, swapping her life for 10 abomination-free years for Eppersett.  (We readers find this out almost immediately, so it's not too severe a spoiler).

Rose, naturally, doesn't find this appealing, but she's not given a choice.  The only thing the Eppersettians are worried about is getting her into the maw of the Abomination alive.  So the golden boy, the tree person, two fierce dog-like beings and a fairy with no wings agree to try to get her there alive.

Dangers beset the travelers, and Rose discovers that she is not, in fact, helpless; she has an actual magical talent of her own (that makes her even more valuable as a sacrifice).  Fighting alongside her captors, and seeing the horror that the Abomination is bringing to Eppersett makes Rose feel some sympathy for them....and if it weren't for the fact that they were bent on sacrificing her, they would be her first true friends outside her family....

And then in the end, Rose has to decide what she will do to save not Eppersett so much as her own self.

So as a standard story of child from our world find a magic gift and a destiny in a magical land it is fine; the magical world and its characters and their backstories and motivations are interesting, the challenges formidable and inventive, with nicely high stakes , and the Abomination unquestionably abominable.  But the whole twist of Rose being a sacrifice gives it a most enjoyable edge of ethical dilemma, that is brought to a satisfying conclusion that makes Rose a victim neither of fate, or of Stockholm Syndrome, but still requires a satisfactorily high level of threat/sacrifice on her part.

It's a journey in which Rose moves from being isolated to being a member of a community, and though she didn't start the journey willingly, in the end she's glad she did (and so is the reader!)

Here's the Kirkus review, if you want another opinion that is basically the same as my opinion...

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher