I won’t say a lot about the themes or story of The Lost Sunday by Iléana Surducan as it is pretty traditional. There are fairy tale tropes, the ideas are what you would expect for an Odyssey like journey of a young girl to the witches lair. The illustrations are amusing, cute, clever, simple and detailed simultaneously. There are good colors to them, without being too bold or too muted. They are supportive of the story. There are not a lot of surprises for big WOW climaxes, but things are not predictable, especially for a new to the genre or the stronger 8 to 12. It fits multiple ages (for reading aloud and solo). It works well for adults and they won’t feel like it is too young, or talking down to them. You know the good guy will win, you know that it will have its “spooky” and “silly” moments, it’s moments of really liking it and not so much. In the end it is a fantastic fairy tale that takes the classical elements, mixes all of them with more modern sentiments and we get a clever and cute story.
What I will say about it is how it made me think about things. It is obviously a more feminist lead story with our main female character as the hero. There is the idea of assumptions (we learn an interesting fact about the real witch she’ll meet) and the idea of work and fun balance. It is a modern story with the spices of classical literature. It is light and dark; funny and serious; and quick and takes your time to read. 
Overall, things are good. It is not WOW my favorite ever book, but I would read it again, recommend it for most ages and go onto the sequels, companions and others by the author. Even the extras at the end of things are worth the read as they give you more background to themes and thoughts by the author. 