In the Palace of Repose is a collection of nine such stories, ranging from the delightfully fantastic "In the Palace of Repose, " to the delicately horrific "One of the Hungry Ones, " to the hauntingly literary "The Other Grace." Here indeed are young women, and young men, who have seen too much, and who have been abandoned to wrestle alone with the strange, the wonderful, the terrifying. Some triumph, some tragically fail. Most struggle on beyond the boundaries of their stories, carrying their wonders and horrors into their lives, into their worlds -- worlds, and lives, startlingly like our own.