This book deals with a serious issue - the search for identity, but the storyline is capricious and flawed. You'll need to make huge leaps of the imagination at certain points. The subject matter deserves better! Could be adapted into a watchable film, though.
When the book room has risen as high as her up-stretched arm, Ursula lies down, exhausted, on the chaise. She can remember as a child dropping off to sleep hearing the murmuring voices of her mother and father, and she has that feeling now, of being safe among half-heard words.