Yearning to find her missing father, 12-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow embarks on an adventure to find him by traveling through the mythical, upside-down, dangerous land of Furthermore along with a boy named Oliver, whose own magical ability is based in lies and deceit. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

This captivating and colorful adventure that reads like a modern day fairy tale, from the bestselling author of the Shatter Me series is the perfect gift!

"Brimming with color and magic." —New York Times Book Review
 
? New York Times bestseller!
? Featured on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," NPR, TIME, and Entertainment Weekly
? A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
? A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year
? A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year
? Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide selections

Inspired by her childhood love of books like A Secret Garden and The Chronicles of Narnia, bestselling author Tahereh Mafi crafts a spellbinding new world where color is currency, adventure is inevitable, and friendship is found in the most unexpected places.

There are only three things that matter to twelve-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. The day Father disappears from Ferenwood he takes nothing but a ruler with him. But it’s been almost three years since then, and Alice is determined to find him. She loves her father even more than she loves adventure, and she’s about to embark on one to find the other.

But bringing Father home is no small matter. In order to find him she’ll have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. It will take all of Alice's wits (and every limb she's got) to find Father and return home to Ferenwood in one piece. On her quest to find Father, Alice must first find herself—and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss. 
 
“Tahereh Mafi is a maestro of words, and Furthermore the most magical painting that ever existed, bursting with color and heart and humanity. I wanted to stay inside this masterpiece forever.” – Marie Lu, New York Times bestselling author of the Legend and The Young Elites series

"A place so full of enchanting beauty and topsy-turvy adventure, it even calls to mind Wonderland and Oz.... Friendship, family and self-acceptance. What makes this book truly sing is the lush world Mafi has created, brimming with color and magic." —New York Times Book Review

? “Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi is a surprising, sensuous, delicious fantasy to devour.” –Shelf Awareness, starred review

? "A fast-paced, funny, and richly imaginative story that embraces and celebrates individuality." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

? "Rich, luscious, clever prose." —Kirkus, starred review - (Penguin Putnam)

Tahereh Mafi is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series. She can usually be found over-caffeinated and stuck in a book. You can find her online just about anywhere at @TaherehMafi or on her website, www.taherehbooks.com. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

The land of Ferenwood celebrates color, magic, and rationality. It is a small tragedy, therefore, that 12-year-old Alice Queensmeadow was born without color—from her cottony hair to her milky white toes—or any apparent magical ability. Her long-awaited chance for adventure comes when Oliver Newbanks reveals that he's found Alice's missing father in the peculiar land of Furthermore, but needs her help with the rescue. Unlike Ferenwood, Furthermore is characterized by reckless magic, danger, and baffling rules that the two must navigate for their quest to succeed. So, too, Alice and Oliver must overcome past differences and learn to trust each other. Mafi (Shatter Me, 2011) constructs her world with kaleidoscopic imagination that recalls Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and Norton Juster's Lands Beyond. Readers will encounter rain-light-dappled skies, sugared air, and a live origami fox; but as delightful as these details are, the descriptive passages impinge on the plot, causing it to drag. Nevertheless, the engaging writing and spirited protagonist will whisk away readers with a penchant for whimsy and world building. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

BookPage Reviews

Searching for answers in a parallel world

In the land of Ferenwood, rainlight pours through the air, magic is currency and color is everywhere. Alice Alexis Queensmeadow covers her embarrassingly colorless body with billowing skirts and bangles, but nothing can cover the pain she's felt ever since her beloved father disappeared three years ago. The highlight of her world is the upcoming Surrender, a ceremony in which 12-year-olds are given assignments based on their magical abilities. 

When Alice's Surrender offering goes wrong, she's consoled by a boy named Oliver, whose mysterious task (and even more mysterious talent) could bring her father home. Alice and Oliver must travel through the parallel world of Furthermore, a wonderland where doors appear out of nowhere, rulers measure time and pocketbooks are books made of actual peoples' pockets.

In language drenched with the pain of loss—and then the joy of recovery—Tahereh Mafi presents a novel that's unique in its emotional resonance. An omniscient narrator intervenes with occasional observations as Alice and Oliver negotiate challenging physical landscapes and the even more challenging landscapes of the heart.

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

Three years after her father's disappearance, twelve-year-old Alice, accompanied by thirteen-year-old Oliver, embarks on a perilous journey to bring Father back from Furthermore, a Wonderland-like place where nothing is as it appears. This richly imaginative fantasy world--with magic as currency, live origami animals, and rulers that measure time--is bolstered by a cheeky and opinionated omniscient narrator. Copyright 2017 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

A 12-year-old girl who doesn't fit into her own world embarks on a harrowing quest with a boy she doesn't trust to find her missing father.With white hair and skin, quirky Alice Queensmeadow's an oddity in colorful, magical Ferenwood. Since her father's mysterious disappearance "unzipped her from top to bottom," Alice finds life full of "unspoken hurts." Alice hopes to prove herself in the annual Surrender, when 12-year-olds demonstrate their unique magical talents. Humiliated by her disappointing performance and with "nothing left to lose and an entire father to find," Alice accepts an invitation from brown-skinned Oliver, a boy she distrusts, to help him bring home her father. Together they descend to alien Furthermore, starting with Slumber, the first of many peculiar villages they will encounter, each with arbitrary rules they must follow. Learning Oliver has deceived her, Alice ditches him but quickly discovers they need each other to survive and find her father. Told in rich, luscious, clever prose by an omniscient narrator whose chatty asides warn and inform, Alice's remarkable adventure transports her across bizarre landscapes where she eventually realizes how wonderful it is to be herself and to have a friend she can trust.An original new Alice confronts her own wonderland in this smashing fantasy. (Fantasy. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Alice Alexis Queensmeadow does her best not to make waves, but she can't help it: she's almost entirely devoid of color in a world defined by it, and her "Surrender" is coming up, along with her 12th birthday. Everyone in Ferenwood "was born with a bit of magical talent," and the Surrender is the time to show them off, receiving an important task in return. When Oliver Newbanks, a boy who once teased her because of her appearance, approaches her for help completing his task, she reluctantly agrees, but only because he says he knows where her missing father is. Oliver and Alice set off for Furthermore, where nothing is as it seems. Mafi's (the Shatter Me trilogy) first middle grade novel is a lush, enchanting fantasy full of magic and mayhem, including paper foxes, people who live in eggshells, and magical maps. While Oliver and Alice start off at odds, their friendship, forged in adversity, is the best part of a fast-paced, funny, and richly imaginative story that embraces and celebrates individuality. Ages 9–12. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House. (Aug.)

School Library Connection

Alice feels like an outcast in Ferenwood because she was born without color while everything in Ferenwood is colorful. Alice and Oliver leave Ferenwood and venture into Furthermore in search of her father. They visit strange communities with strange happenings and odd rules. Alice loses her arm when a paper fox tries to drag her in his paper world. When they enter Paramont, they are entertained with a big celebration and invited to a feast with the queen but quickly realize they will be the main course so they flee the community. This novel reminds the reader of the book, Alice in Wonderland.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 5–7—Twelve-year-old Alice of Ferenwood is swept up in an adventure when she sets out to find her three-years-lost father after her demonstration of magical talent fails to impress her village. In her world, color is intimately connected with magical ability. Everyone around her has brightly colored skin and hair. Alice, however, was born without any color—she has ultra-pale skin and light hair. She gains a companion on her journey to locate her father, a boy named Oliver who has the deceitful gift of persuasion and who provides a gateway into the neighboring fantasy land of Furthermore. In the vein of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this title, with its colorful world-building, is sure to delight, the prose so saturated with the fantastic that the described reality becomes difficult to differentiate from metaphor. The tongue-in-cheek section headings are delightful (e.g., "Turn the page for more chapters" and "This might be my favorite part") but sporadic and mostly for fun, since the chapters are unnumbered and unnamed. Filled with danger and arbitrary rules, the realm of Furthermore is so set against interlopers like Alice and Oliver that their eventual success relies on happenstance. The fast-paced narrative, with a focus on action and adventure, comes to an unexpected halt when the story is expeditiously resolved. The book attempts to depict characters with a rich variety of hair and skin tones, but the plot features a protagonist who reflects the typical whiteness that besets most fantasy. VERDICT An unusually imaginative, entertaining fantasy with mostly minor deficiencies that prevent it from becoming pure magic.—Erin Reilly-Sanders, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI