The Garden of the Golden Children

I was offered a last minute review copy to judge for the Indie Ink Awards for the categories of Best Setting and Mental Health Rep. I agreed to help them finish up judging, and I enjoyed it! 
The setting is a cool/silly take on the idea that everyone is somewhere, therefore the town is called Somewhere, while other places are Somewhere-Else. The children go to the Academy, and at this academy they are overseen by the headmaster. He's a little off, but he is, of course, from Somewhere-Else. 
The novella itself is about Ellis and her struggle with opening up, , love, loss, grief, and defiance in the face of abuse. The novel deals with dark content that consistently stands in her way. Her struggle, as well as the golden children, are heavily metaphoric. Nothing is black and white, but the author does a good job with the presentation of what's happening. To avoid being more spoilery, I won't say more! 
The only nitpick I have is that some of the formatting was a little weird/off. The paragraphs were double—and sometimes triple—spaced in a way that didn't really make sense to me. I think if the shifting between story, diary like notes from Ellis, and world-building lore stories, we're separated more, it would have made more sense between what was being read. 
Enjoyable and deep. Personally a 3/5* for me.