The Overly Attached Reader

April 19th is April Donovan’s eighteenth birthday. It’s also Senior Skip Day, but she and her two best friends decide to attend school anyway. April has a Hyper Superior Autobiographical Memory (hyperthymesia) and can’t stop herself from thinking about every tragedy that has happened during her birth month. On the same day, a young man–known online as the Mastermind–is planning a coordinated attack on the nation’s schools.

“People might say to you kids that your generation is spoiled. Entitled. Too wrapped up in yourselves. … But this thing,” Mr. Goodrich says. “I mean, what is this? Nobody can tell me that you kids aren’t fighting a war all your own. Jesus Christ, nobody can tell me that.”

I was a junior in high school when the Columbine shooting happened and the active shooting drills entered the routine soon after. Even though they were just drills, those days were always so unsettling! The idea of being hunted is terrifying. Several mass murders are vaguely referenced within the chapters (no murderers are named) and it shocked me how fresh each one is in my memory.

The entire story happens in a 2.5 hour period (9:43am to 12:03pm), except for the final two chapters. Despite taking place in the time surrounding an active shooter situation, there is very little violence. It’s more about the inner lives of these teenagers and their moment of decision (“the light fantastic”) than bloodshed. What makes someone willing to take their own life and the lives of others? What could steer that person towards a better path?

We all want attention. Every single one of us. We’re all starved for it, and anyone who says they’re not is a liar. The root of all evil? I don’t think it’s money, like the saying goes. I think maybe the actual root of all evil is the constant need for attention on the part of every single human being on the planet, myself included. We are all just bottomless pits of need.

The Glass Menagerie (helpful analysis at link) and several Greek myths (Icarus/wings, Theseus, Fates/ thread) are frequently alluded to. The writing style reminded me of Tennessee Williams and it took me forever to figure that out, even though it was staring me right in the face! There is in anxious energy and a passion in these character’s voices. The youthful use of language did make me feel old! Several of the characters mash their words together and one of them occasionally communicates in hashtags for emphasis. It annoyed me at first, but it underscores the youth and innocence of the characters. Everything is so new, so much is happening, and they feel it all so deeply; they can barely stop to take a breath between their words.

Be the most awesome you can awesomely be. Don’t settle for anything less. It’s a huge lot of pressure, the constant expectation of awesomeness. What if you don’t feel awesome? What if awesome is the opposite of the way you feel? How about this, assholes: be kind.

There are a lot of perspectives and it can be difficult to keep track of them all. The chapter headings are poetic, but not always helpful. The headings have timestamps, but it would’ve liked it if a location was also included. Since there were also many different places and minor characters, I kept having to go back and see how the perspective I was reading related to everyone else. I wasn’t able to keep everyone straight until I was halfway through the book. I hope the character list below will help readers who are having the same problem. The character names that aren’t italicized are mentioned a few times, but they don’t have their own chapters.

Delaware
April- The central character. Has hyperthymesia.
Gavin – One of April’s best friends.
Gina – Best friends with April and Gavin.
Pal  – Classmate that April has grown up with.
Nate – Classmate, has had a crush on Gina for years
Mr. Goodrich – Physics teacher.

Nebraska
Lincoln – Friends with April in elementary school, but lost touch when he moved.
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Adrian  – Made a threat to Ms. Helslip.
Laura – Lincoln’s classmate and crush.

The Assassins and the Plan
Mastermind in California
Idaho (Phoebe)
Delaware (Revealed at end)
Nebraska
Texas

Shame. It weighs more than sorrow, and much more than regret. Delaware can’t even say what it looks like, because that’s the thing with shame: After a while you might dare to open your eyes, thinking maybe you’ve managed to forget about it this time, just for a second — but no. There it is. Always there. It might once have been attached to whatever it was you said (or didn’t say), whatever it was you did (or failed to do), but it is now its own dark creature, separate from and larger than the thing that gave it life. It keens its high, silver scream in your ears, the sound of echoing mirrors. It feeds and hungers and preens, and it will not go away.

April’s condition causes her to recall almost everything she has experienced throughout her entire life in excruciating detail. The Assassins are also haunted by memories. They each have single incidents that replay in their heads, forcing them to relive their shame constantly. As the Assassins turned inwards, they become untethered from their families and communities. Even though many of the Assassins of are self-isolated and too ashamed to go to their loved ones for help, they still crave human connection and deep down hope someone will reach out to them. The main messages are to look out for your fellow human beings and be kind. “You never know what’s going on inside somebody’s head, somebody’s heart.” At one point a character wonders if those that experience cruelty anticipate its return. That gives some insight into how the Assassins may have became so trapped inside themselves. 

What matters is the love, and love is always good. It’s a start, a tether. It’s enough.

This author excelled at authentic character profiles. I cared about their fates. I was surprised that I was able to relate to some of the inner turmoil of some of the characters in The Assassins group. I remember keeping things to myself in high school because I was too ashamed to tell anyone, especially those closest to me. I could understand why these characters embraced an online community that allowed them to shed their identity and baggage, as well as giving the illusion of power over their situation. One thing that really got me was how different my picture of the Mastermind was compared to his physical description at the end. It’s easy to forget how young these kids are.

We think we want and need so many things in this life, but this, I realize, is the key: just, every once in a while, to feel new again.

The downside is I didn’t feel like I read a complete story. It was more like a series of scattered moments with little connective tissue. Some parts didn’t capture my imagination in the way I think they were supposed to (the bleachers) and I didn’t always feel the tension you would expect with a story of this nature. The pivotal events that drove Phoebe and Delaware to consider mass murder didn’t ring completely true to me. However, I think this book is important for understanding the minds of the kids that are teetering on the edge. The teens in this book aren’t sociopaths. They are consumed by self-hate and unable to see a way out. I loved the writing too; it was the kind I could feel in my gut.  Recommended for teenagers and those who work with them.

My favorite passage:

God, the world is so huge. This is all anybody needs to keep on going, I think: a daily reminder of just how huge the world is, and how small we are—how small our problems are—in comparison. Don’t laugh at me, either. Don’t laugh. This is not me talking some sort of manufactured inspirational nonsense. This is me trying hard to tell the truth about something, and the truth is that I couldn’t not be in love with the world if I tried. And I’ve tried, too — I’ve tried to feel sorry for myself, I’ve tried to affect a brood. I can’t do it, though. It’s like I’m physically incapable. Sooner or later I always get bowled over by what appears to be my genuine affection for the world. It’s like I can’t help it, and it doesn’t even take much. Like a song’ll come on the radio, some song I haven’t heard in a while or whatever, and, bam, there I am, taken by surprise, right back in love with my life. Music does this to me all the time. Music, and that part of the day just before the sun disappears, and cherry Twizzlers, and most of all freedom. Any kind of freedom at all.

If you love the TV series Black Mirror, this book is for you! This collection of thirteen short stories features a variety of imagined futures where technology has become so embedded in day-to-day life that it’s impossible to live without it. Many of the characters have grown so dependent on virtual reality that they’ve forgotten how to connect with people in the real world. Some of them seem to want more offline connections, but are clueless about how to obtain them. One of the reasons books like this are so unsettling is because it’s easy to see how these tech-obsessed societies developed and gradually became the norm. In Migration, a man still holds on to the more traditional values of his youth, but his younger wife is unbothered by the cultural changes since these new technologies were always part of her life.

It all made me want to turn off my layers, go back to the old days, and stay disconnected. But you do that and you become another old guy buried in an e-reader, complaining about how no one sends emails anymore.

My favorites:

• Saying Goodbye to Yang: In a world where people prefer cloning to conceiving naturally, the couple in this story decided to adopt a little girl from China. They also purchased a life-like robot named Yang to serve as her brother and ensure that she would remain connected to her culture. One morning, Yang has a catastrophic malfunction and fixing him isn’t an option. The father realizes how much Yang has become part of the family and how little he knows about the world, including their neighbors.

• The Cartographers – A company creates complex memories that are beamed into customer’s minds. They’re so well-done that it’s difficult to distinguish the difference between real memories and fake ones. One of the owner’s addiction to creating false memories makes it difficult for him to make real memories with his girlfriend.

• Heartland – Companies exploited all of this community’s land and resources, leaving the citizens with a wasteland. They’re forced to make difficult decisions to survive. With very few jobs available, a family uses their children to make ends meet. How far are they willing to go?

• Children of the New World – A couple who was unable to have a child in real life is devastated when a virus destroys their virtual family.

• Rocket Night – Every year, a local elementary school sends the least-liked child to space. The casual detachment of the narrator made this one extra eerie!

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Some days I think it was; that there’s no way to share the totality of yourself and still be loved, that secrets are the glue that holds relationships together.

• Openness – This one takes place in a world where you can easily share your most inner self with others. You can control which parts of yourself people can access by locking specific layers. Can a couple survive revealing all of their layers?

We were the first generation to grow up with layers, a group of kids who’d produced thousands of tutorials on blocking unwanted users but not a single one on empathy.

• Ice Age – Tensions escalate between an igloo community and their wealthy neighbor who’s wasting dwindling resources. The close-knit community focused on survival is permanently altered when material possession becomes an option.

My favorites tended to be the ones about couples and families surviving in a technologically advanced world. The tales are bleak and depressing, but also interesting and unique. I love speculative fiction and weird short stories, so this book was a perfect fit for me. As with all short story collections, I liked some stories more than others. There were only two that didn’t appeal to me at the time (The Pyramid and the Ass and the very short A Brief History of the Failed Revolution). I calculated four stars by averaging my scores for each individual short story, so I rated most of them very highly. You can sample some of Alexander Weinstein’s short stories at his website. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future!

If you enjoy this collection of short stories, you might also want to check out Slipping by Lauren Beukes (available 11/29/16) and Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips.

Young adult novel that addresses misogyny. It’s thought-provoking, but I was unable to connect to the story or the characters. Content warning: Drinking, drugs, sex, cursing, sexual assault, and animal cruelty.

We use objects to navigate spaces, making a map in our heads as neurons fire, pathways so well worn we don’t even know we reference them as we move from one location to the next, the same pattern. Every day. There are things in place to help us, signs in certain colors and shapes. Arrows pointing. Symbols indicating. Making your own framework is more entertaining more personal. Less contracting. (Alex)

Three years ago, Alex Craft’s sister was murdered. The justice system set the killer free, but Alex made sure he paid for his crimes. Alex’s darker impulses have led to her being a loner for her entire life, until she befriends two classmates during senior year. She becomes more social and starts to see there’s more to life than sitting at home, but one night her violent side is exposed and she sets a series of events in motion that will change her small town forever.

“Everyone thinks if you fix a male dog it will lower his aggression, but most of the biters are female. It’s basic instinct to protect their own womb. You see it in all animals–the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
“Except humans,” the other girl volunteering says.

Alex is a fierce protector for those who are mistreated. I loved how Alex was quick to defend Branley when her peers start teasing her about her clothing or her sexual history. Alex is socially awkward because she has spent very little time with other people. She has spent most of her life at home with her books, which causes her to occasionally talk like a psychology textbook. I love how she’s so matter-of-fact! Despite the seriousness of the book, there are several conversations where she’s unintentionally hilarious. Jack is a star athlete who loves girls and wants to escape his small town as quick as possible. He is enamored with Alex. I didn’t like his chapters very much and I mostly wanted to punch him every time he talked about Branley, his friend with benefits. Jack can be annoying, but it seems that he might be going through the motions of life and playing a role he thinks he is expected to fill. While I wasn’t thrilled by Jack as a character, it was refreshing how his relationship with Alex developed gradually. However, my favorite relationship was the friendship between Peekay and Alex. Peekay is tired of being pigeonholed as the “preacher’s kid” and she can’t seem to escape that label no matter what she does. Alex and Peekay meet while working at an animal shelter. As their friendship develops, they both discover new aspects of themselves that they had never considered before. I loved how they supported each other and their last conversation in the book is especially sweet.

Sometimes after I’ve had a few beers I think about their parents–our grandparents–and then back further, to people who loved this place for a different reason. People who pulled rocks out of the ground to make the walls, cutting timber for a roof that has now rotted mostly away. The supports still in place are stained black from ashes of the generations that followed, our hands hard at work to tear it back down. (Jack)

I thought Branley was actually the most interesting character, even though we only see her through the other character’s perspectives. The motivations and personalities of the three main characters are clear from the beginning, but Branley is slowly revealed over the course of the story. She, like many of the other characters. is playing an expected role. She’s trying to get through life the best way she knows how and much of her public persona is based on what she thinks boys want from her. We witness brief glimpses of who she is when she doesn’t feel the pressure to perform that show that she’s more than the role she has been pigeonholed into by herself and others. There’s a scene where Branley is humiliated in front of all her classmates; she doesn’t say a word, but her reaction says it all. She is tough, yet vulnerable. She makes many costly mistakes, because of the harmful attitudes she has internalized.

‘Boys will be boys’, our favorite phrase that excuses so many things, while the only thing we have for the opposite gender is ‘women’, said with disdain and punctuated with an eye roll. (Alex)

What I liked the most about this book are the conversations that it will inspire. I wasn’t emotionally engaged during the book, but I feel a sense of outrage when applying its messages to the real world. There’s a great passage at the beginning of the fourth chapter, where Alex discusses the general population’s inconsistent reasoning processes regarding animals and humans. My immediate thought was about the uneven level of public outrage when it comes to animal abuse cases versus domestic violence cases. There’s quite a bit of violence against animals in this book and I wondered if that was partially included for the reader to gauge the differences in their reactions to different kinds of victims. It also addresses double standards and how boys tend to be let off the hook for aggressive behaviors that girls are admonished for. How much of what’s excused as biological compulsion is actually learned behavior that continues because it’s blindly accepted? There are also scenes that confront girl’s attitudes towards other girls. At one point, Branley “steals” Peekay’s boyfriend and Peekay puts total blame on Branley. Alex helps her analyze her knee-jerk reaction and Peekay is able to see that she’s being unfair and how much of her reaction is due to habit. How much of our behavior is how we truly feel and how much is how we’ve been conditioned to feel? They also have a great conversation about acting on violent thoughts. There’s a lot to analyze in this book and I’m not even scratching the surface. If you enjoy the story, it’s one that’s definitely worth a reread. 
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‘It’s a reflex, something that’s been ingrained in me. Do no harm. Be nice. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But what if I don’t want to catch flies? What if I’d rather see them swatted? (Peekay)

I loved most of the messaging, but I just couldn’t break past the surface. The short chapters and the rotation of three narrators prevented me from settling into the story. Each character’s thoughts were repetitive. I never want to see the phrase “preacher’s kid” again! I wished the main villains wouldn’t have been so over-the-top, especially since the author did such a great job of illustrating casual, subtle misogyny throughout the rest of the book. I would’ve loved for the main villain was a seemingly normal classmate that they frequently interacted with, especially since the extreme cases were already covered. I saw the Dexter comparisons and expected the tone to be consistently darker. The YA novels that I tend to enjoy aren’t usually in a high school setting, so this may have just been a case of it being a little too YA for me.

Tonight they used the words they know, words that don’t bother people anymore. They said bitch. They told another girl they would put their dicks in her month. No one protested because this is our language now. But then I used my words, strung in phrases that cut deep, and people paid attention then; people gasped. People didn’t know what to think.
My language is shocking. (Alex)

I didn’t connect to the story or the characters, but it was thought-provoking. It definitely awakened my inner Olivia Benson! I haven’t been able to watch the news without thinking about it. The Female of the Species addresses double standards and societal attitudes towards victims and abusers. It prompts everyone to be more aware of harmful messages that we are exposed to every day and that we may be unintentionally spreading ourselves.  It encourages the reader to be being more thoughtful about how their own actions affect others and to stand up for those who need an advocate. It ends on the hopeful note that we are all capable of evolving as people and deviating from the standard path,

If the subject of this book interests you, you might be interested in reading All the Pretty Corpses, a short essay by Lauren Beukes.

Nothing is ours; nothing is sacred. The one thing we shared was pulled into pieces, memorialized and mythologized so that everyone could participate in it. When she was missing, Anna’s picture was tacked in so many places around town it’s what I see when I think of her, not her actual face. I see that picture next to a lost cat poster and a lawn-mowing service advertisment.
I learned later they did find that cat.(Alex)

3.5 Stars. A coming-of-age story about hope and continuing to live when all seems lost.

Tuesday, and those planes, they’ve broken something. Permanently. And in the process, they’ve changed everything. And everyone.

September 11, 2001: Two planes fly into the Twin Towers. Kyle Donohue’s NYC high school is evacuated after they witness the South Tower collapsing. While fleeing to his home on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, he spots an ash-covered girl wearing costume wings. She looks as if she’s preparing to leap off the bridge, but Kyle convinces her to come home with him. She is confused and has no memory of who she is. When Kyle arrives at his apartment with the girl, only his uncle is at home. Uncle Matt moved in after he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident. Kyle has a lot to worry about: his mom and sister are scheduled the fly home from California that day, his father is a first responder who is probably at the scene of the attack, and his uncle’s caretaker is unable to get to work. The phone service is completely unreliable, further compounding his fears about his family’s welfare. Until the family can hopefully reunite, everything is on Kyle’s shoulders. He tries to help the girl regain her memories, but part of him doesn’t want her to figure it out. He knows he should take her to the precinct or a hospital, but she refuses and he doesn’t want to let her go. She is one piece of hope to cling to during a time of uncertainty.

How can a person get up and go to school on a Tuesday morning, their life all normal and fine, and then a few minutes later, someone they love is dead? How can people be here, then, boom, gone? Life should be more permanent than that.

The whole book takes place over four days: 9/11/01 to 9/14/01. The story alternates between Kyle’s and the girl’s perspectives. Kyle’s part of the story is told traditionally, while the girl’s voice is via poem. The perspective switches constantly within chapters, but it’s an easy transition because the style is so different. The poetry fits perfectly with the girl and her “garbled” thoughts. I do have difficulty with poetry and that was no different here, especially when the girl would allude to snippets of memory from her previous life. However, most of it was easy enough for me to parse! Most of the time is spent at the Donohue apartment, but Kyle occasionally walks around and experiences the unusualness of the situation: the dust, the smell, the lack of people on the streets, and the military presence. When Kyle ventures out, I felt the confusion, the uncertainty, and the sense of community. Those that were excluded from that sense of community because of heightened suspicions are briefly mentioned. The author also did a good job giving a global perspective. While such a large-scale act of war on United States soil may have been rare, terrible tragedies happen every day. The situation gives Kyle greater empathy for his best friend who escaped genocide in his home country.

Change comes in two ways. The first is the blindside way that comes without warning. … But other times, change comes gradually, in that sure, steady way you can sense coming a mile away. Or maybe a day away. Or, maybe, a few short hours. And since you know it’s coming, you’re supposed to prepare. Brace yourself against the stinging blow. But just because you plant your feet wider, doesn’t mean the blow won’t take you down.

The characters in this book were my favorite part! I was more interested in the way the characters reacted to their current circumstances than I was in the mystery of the girl’s identity. Kyle is such a sweet kid. He grows up so much during the tumultuous week and he really steps up to the plate. There are so many aspects of Kyle’s life that I was interested in watching unfold. Kyle and his dad have a difficult time relating to one another. His dad has traditional views on masculinity and doesn’t understand Kyle’s sensitivity or his creative pursuits. Kyle develops a crush on the girl, but he feels a sense of duty towards her and is very concerned that acting on his feelings would be taking advantage of her. I especially loved Kyle’s relationship with Uncle Matt. They already had a close relationship, but Kyle has never had to assume caretaking duties before. I loved the way they teased each other. I also loved how the girl immediately identified with Uncle Matt, who also has a hard time verbalizing his thoughts.
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“Remember how you asked me earlier how it feels, how I feel, to be me right now? To remember things and not remember? … Well, it feels like that, Kyle, back there. Like I’m adrift, in soaking wet clothes that are too heavy with the weight of things I don’t even know. And then the water doesn’t drown me but carries me, and for a second it lightens everything a little, and I feel momentarily hopeful. But always, there are things, beneath the waves, threatening to pull me under. And the land is right there, close enough to swim to—I can see it—but I’m not sure I want to come back to shore again. It’s like I’m here, solid, but I’m not connected to anything. I’m completely untethered.”

While the book takes place during 9/11, it is mostly about dealing with trauma and uncertainty. Kyle clings to any bit of normalcy. Some of the characters stay in denial to avoid dealing with difficult realities. Others expect the worst and are hesitant to accept hopeful news, in order to avoid being disappointed. It shows how our families can keep us grounded, even when we have trouble relating to them or they can’t be there physically. There is a scene at the end, where the girl looks at her reflection that was especially touching. What was your original face before your mother and father were born?

“Sometimes never being ready is the best kind of ready to be.”

It’s hard to believe the 9/11 attacks were fifteen years ago. It has remained at the forefront of public consciousness. The Memory of Things captures the time and place so well. It’s a thoughtful story with a relatable protagonist. Highly recommended for young adult readers.

Are you okay? his eyes ask. I know that’s what he wants to know. And I guess I am. What are my choices? What else am I going to be other than okay?

(Side Note: I just got used to stories set in the 1980s being historical fiction, and now the 2000s have hit that milestone? :-O)

For my whole life I have believed that, regardless of the hand we are dealt, each of us chooses how we play our cards.

This memoir sounded interesting because it’s from the unique perspective of the man who fathered the leader of the controversial Church of Scientology. Ron Miscavige wrote this book after he discovered that his son David had him followed and directed the private investigators not to intervene if it appeared Ron needed medical assistance. He is also upset that his daughters stopped speaking to him due to the CoS’s policy of disconnection. Ron seems like an affable man, but he has an old-school door-to-door salesman vibe. I got the feeling that he might be presenting himself and the events as rosier than they were. He also really needs the answer to the question of nature vs. nurture to be nature! That’s not to say whether he’s right or wrong, it’s just a point that’s emphasized. Ron had a toxic relationship with the mother of his children. She gets the ‘shrew’ portrayal; the caricature is that pronounced. Most of Ron’s admissions of wrong-doing or bad parenting were usually followed by a minimization or deflection of blame. The most obvious offense: “I never slapped or hit [Loretta] in the face but, still sometimes I did strike her. I might punch her in the arm or push her away when she was getting on me, She threw things at me–pots, pans, a pot of boiling coffee once.” He is typically quick to gloss over his mistakes, which made him difficult to empathize with.

They were people who sincerely wanted to help others and make a better world. The impulse to help is strong in most people, and I think it exists in the greater part of humanity, but there are also a relative few among humankind who would use people’s kind hearts and good intentions for selfish ends. You could even say that good people are flawed because they have a hard time conceiving that others are not also basically good and therefore can be deceived.

My biggest disappointment was that David Miscavige remained on the periphery of the account. David moved out when he was sixteen, but I didn’t even feel like I got to know him when he was living in the family home. Basically, Scientology cured his asthma and he was an aggressive bully in school. There are a few direct interactions between father and son, but most of it is speculation, hearsay, and declarations of personality traits without detailed examples to back them up. It’s not that I didn’t think the events were believable, but I would have liked to see more conversations and corroborating accounts. I know those must be difficult to obtain since the organization is so secretive and quick to retaliate. I didn’t feel like I was always getting the whole story, like the rape allegations against Ron or David’s quick ascent to leadership after Hubbard’s death.

How does it get to that point? By tiny increments. A small change here, a small change there. A slight modification of a rule here, another one there. You agree to each one because it seems like no great loss of liberty or freedom of movement or of thought. It is for the greater good, you rationalize.

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There are some interesting tidbits about life in the Scientology compound. My favorite part was Ron’s break with the church after twenty-seven years. He went to absurd lengths when planning his escape! My eyes also perked up when Tom Cruise briefly showed up. The celebrity obsession of the Scientology leadership is so strange and creepy! Ron did a good job explaining how a person can get caught up in such a restrictive environment. Despite everything he went through, he still has an overall positive view of the church’s teachings. While he does talk about how much better the church was in L. Ron Hubbard’s control, he occasionally reveals Hubbard’s flaws. It was interesting to see the illusion start to fade as he reflected on the past.

A philosophy is just a philosophy. Nearly everybody follows someone else’s way of dealing with life or makes up their own or creates a blend of the two.

Obviously, this book wasn’t received well by the Church of Scientology! When I search “Ron Miscavige” via Google, the first link is a paid ad to a website set up by the CoS to discredit Ron and his co-author Dan Koon. Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me was more about a man who needs to absolve himself of both his and his son’s sins, rather insight into the mind of a cruel and controlling cult leader. I’d recommend it if you’re curious about what kind of environment David Miscavige grew up in. I preferred Leah Remini’s memoir because I was already familiar with her, the transition from regular member to celebrity member was interesting, and it was pretty juicy on the celebrity gossip front!

What is the catalyst for such an unfortunate transformation? I have included that it is the acquisition of power. Some who come into positions of power may be able to remain whole and true to themselves, but my son David has demonstrated beyond doubt that he is not one of them.

Zoe Guerin is a musical prodigy with a genius IQ. Her dreams of success were shattered the night she was involved in a tragic accident that resulted in the death of three classmates. Zoe was convicted in their deaths and spent eighteen months in jail. At seventeen she has served her time and her mother Maria plans the perfect comeback–a piano recital. They live in a new community now and no one knows about Zoe’s past. The plans for redemption come to a halt when the father of one of Zoe’s victims storms in and confronts her in front of the entire crowd. Zoe and her mother flee the scene and wait for Zoe’s stepfather Chris to return home. Chris was never told of Zoe’s past run-in with the law and the unexpected reveal threatens to destroy their second chance at life. Chris is angry about all the lies and Maria sees her life slipping away again. The family never has a chance to heal, because Maria is found dead six hours later. Who killed Zoe’s mother and why? Was Zoe actually guilty of killing her three classmates or was she betrayed by an imperfect legal system?

The best lies are those that are the closest to the truth.

I really liked What She Knew, so I was thrilled when I won this one! The Perfect Girl didn’t even feel like the same author to me, so I don’t think a reader’s opinion of Macmillan’s previous novel is any indicator of whether they will like this one or not. On a very basic level, it reminded me of my experience reading Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper and my issues with perspectives and the character’s voices.

Guilt is a good way to leverage people. … I learned it because my guilt about what I’ve done makes me bend the shape of myself to fit what other people want every day of my life.

The Characters (Bolded characters have their own chapters):
Zoe: The perfect girl. 🙂
Maria: Zoe’s mother
Chris: Stepfather
Lucas: Stepbrother
Philip: Zoe’s father

Tessa: Zoe’s aunt
Sam: Zoe’s former solicitor. In a relationship with Tessa.
Richard: Tessa’s alcoholic husband.

The events in the book occur over twenty-four hours, with occasional flashbacks to Zoe’s past legal trouble. Zoe is stubborn, driven, and emotionally cold. She has a dark sense of humor that makes it difficult for her to connect with people. We don’t get to know Zoe’s mother very well, but she expends a ton of energy trying to meet her new husband’s impossible standards. The Guerin women lost everything after the accident and they don’t want to lose their second chance at life. Zoe’s aunt Tessa has her own issues with perfection. Tessa and Sam’s affair exists in a perfect bubble. The rarely talk about any real issues. While Tessa looks forward to her time with Sam, she is reluctant to leave her husband. She still remembers when her marriage was “perfect” and still hopes that their relationship will improve someday.

My dislikes:

• The characters were flat and I could only tell them apart by context. The men’s voices didn’t sound authentic to me. Even the grief over the mother’s death didn’t even feel authentic. I didn’t care what happened to most of the characters.

• It was too long and Part One dragged. Part One: Sunday and Monday is 225 pages, which is half the book. Most of the Monday chapters actually reflect back on Zoe’s past. During Sam and Tessa’s chapters, it felt like I was on the phone with someone analyzing their family members and telling me about their family drama. I didn’t feel like I was actually experiencing anything and I think that’s why Part One felt slow. Even Zoe’s reflections felt that way and she was the one with direct experience. Part Two: Monday was more interesting because it focuses on the events of Monday and what happened to Zoe’s mother, but it was already too late for me.

• There were too many perspectives, especially from those who are essentially spectators of the central story. I think I would have liked the story more if it stuck with the “Second Chance Family.” I could have done without the Tessa/Richard/Sam storyline, but that was actually the part that affected me the most. Sam’s last chapter was haunting.

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• The family’s movements through the house during a very short period of time seemed unnatural. The concert is at 7pm and Zoe’s mom dies six hours later. On that dramatic Sunday night, they kept casually separating and reuniting in different areas of the home. The odd calmness of the characters mixed with a frantic energy of their movements drove me crazy!

• After the incident at the church, Lucas sends Zoe and her mom a script he wrote. He won’t tell them what it’s about, but he insists that it’s urgent that they read it. It ends up being about his life before his father met Zoe’s mother. I wasn’t a big fan of PDF problems and wi-fi connectivity issues to drag out the suspense. Zoe casually mentioned the tech issues over multiple chapters (she is definitely not in a hurry to read it), which just highlighted the calculated stalling. After Act I, we don’t get another glimpse of the script for 217 pages.

• Tessa’s husband Richard is an alcoholic who sleeps all the time. Richard goes through a sudden and unrealistic change in the middle of the book. 

I already knew that life was unfair, and that structures society puts in place to protect you don’t always work … what happened to me marked me permanently, turned me into somebody who could be pushed and pulled around, like a toy for other people to play with, somebody without a voice, and without the right to a normal life.
Unless.
Unless I’m brave enough to take control.

My Likes:
• The gradual glimpse into Maria’s marriage and all the subtle hints that something wasn’t right.
• The parts about injustice in the justice system, though I think it could have gone much further with that angle.
• I thought it was interesting to read about a couple struggling with fertility issues, where the man is the one desperate for a child.
• I liked where Zoe ended up at the end, even though I’m not sure how I feel about how she got there!

“It’s not wrong if it ends up being right.”

Everyone has problems and perfect is an impossible standard to live up to. I disagree with the blurb that states readers of The Girl on a Train will love this book. This book felt much more like a young adult novel, though it is not categorized that way. While this novel did not resonate with me, I think it will be entertaining for many. If you are interested in teens in the juvenile detention system, you might be interested in The Walls Around Us.

I don’t think I have nine lives, but I hope I have three.

3.5 Stars. Cora is a slave on the Randall plantation, the place where she was born and where her grandmother and mother were also slaves. Caesar, a new arrival on the property, offers her an opportunity to accompany him on the Underground Railroad, but she is hesitant. When leadership on the plantation changes hands and Cora’s circumstances get even worse, she decides to take a chance and flee with Caesar. Not one to let his property get away, Terrance Randall sends a determined slave catcher after the duo. As Cora and Caeser embark on a horrifying journey through the heart of America in search of freedom, the dangers of being caught are always at the forefront of their minds.

“If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America.”

I try to avoid blurbs, so I thought this book was going to be straightforward historical fiction. It was so different than I expected and it defies classification! It isn’t historical fiction in the traditional sense and it doesn’t claim to be. The actual train running underground is the first clue that liberties will be taken with historical facts, although the horrors are all very real. It sometimes felt like Cora was traveling through time, as well as the country. This collapsed version of history made the message clearer than if the events been spread out over decades, similar to how an expressionist painting can be a more accurate representation of its subject than a more realistic portrayal. The almost fantastic nature of the story made me feel unstuck in time*, which made it easier to apply the message broadly and prevented me from compartmentalizing it as the distant past.

Truth was a changing display in a shop window, manipulated by hands when you weren’t looking, alluring and ever out of reach.

It’s impossible to know Cora’s actual age, but she thinks she is around sixteen or seventeen. Her mother ran away when she was a child and she resents being left behind to fend for herself. She’s emotionally restrained from the abuse she has endured from both slave owners and fellow slaves. The one thing Cora “owns” is “a plot three yards square and the hearty stuff that sprouted from it.” The plot was passed down to her mother from her grandmother and to Cora once her mother ran away. At one point another slave decides to challenge her ownership of that small piece of land. I fell in love with Cora the moment she challenged that grown man in order to protect the only thing she had to call her own.

After Cora escapes the plantation, her journey leads her through multiple states. Each state has its own culture and it was interesting to experience the worlds Whitehead created. At the beginning of each leg of Cora’s journey is an actual runaway slave advertisement. I was confused by those until the end, because I wasn’t sure how they tied into Cora’s story. (This may be a Kindle-only problem!) While they are all affecting, the last one is especially poignant. The state sections are also separated by short chapters revealing the back stories and motivations of some of the characters Cora encounters, including her grandmother, the slave catcher and a South Carolina doctor. One of the things that struck me most in those chapters (that I can mention), is how the slaves’ bodies were pilfered even after their deaths. The character chapters were interesting, but they were my least favorite part. I wanted to get back to Cora!

Why had they believed that two lowly slaves deserved the bounty of South Carolina? That a new life existed so close, just over the state line? It was still the south, and the devil had long nimble fingers. And then, after all the world had taught them, not to recognize chains when they were snapped to their wrists and ankles. The South Carolina chains were of new manufacture—the keys and tumblers marked by regional design—but accomplished the purpose of chains. They had not traveled very far at all.

South Carolina was my favorite section because it reminded me so much of the dystopian speculative fiction that I like to read.  South Carolina seems significantly better than what Cora just escaped from, but something isn’t right. As Cora reveals more about the community, it appears that much of their independence is an illusion. Cora’s strange job assignment is a highlight of this section. Sterilization and medical experimentation popped up decades before I would have expected, but the juxtaposition of those events with the physical chains that Cora just escaped was very effective.

The weak link—she liked the ring of it. To seek the imperfection in the chain that keeps you in bondage. Taken individually, the link was not much. But in concert with its fellows, a mighty iron that subjugated millions despite its weakness. The people she chose, young and old, from the rich part of town or the more modest streets, did not individually persecute Cora. As a community, they were shackles. If she kept at it, chipping away at weak links wherever she found them, it might add up to something.

I was most engaged with the story when I was at Cora’s side. About halfway through, it started to lose its emotional grip on me. In North Carolina and Tennessee, Cora became mostly an observer. Those chapters felt long to me, even though they were interesting and important. There were more character introductions that read like dry biographical accounts. Sometimes the order in which events were revealed made me feel disoriented. For example, I felt thrown into the Indiana setting at 77%. At 84%, the timeline between Tennessee and Indiana is finally explained. That doesn’t seem like very long to wait, but I had all these nagging questions that kept me from focusing until I got those answers. A similar thing happened in South Carolina, though not as pronounced. Even though I had issues with those sections, there were still so many powerful and memorable parts: Cora watching community events through the hole in the attic, Freedom Trail, the desolation. a scene reminiscent of the Tulsa Race Riot (though that certainly isn’t the only one). The aforementioned scenes would have been right at home in a horror novel.
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What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close but from outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to do with chains or how much space you had. On the plantation, she was not free, but she moved unrestricted on its acres, tasting the air and tracing the summer stars. The place was big in its smallness. Here, she was free of her master but slunk around a warren so tiny she couldn’t stand.

While it didn’t always engage my heart, it did engage my brain. What is freedom? Are you free if you lose your chains, but your actions are still bound by the ruling majority? Are you free if your pursuit of liberty and happiness is always under threat by fearful neighbors? Why should someone have to forgo their rights for the majority’s psychological comfort? To what extent are we trapped into our roles by systems beyond our control? How far do you have to get from injustices before they can be put behind you?

A notion crept over her like a shadow: that this station was not the start of the line but its terminus. Construction hadn’t started beneath the house but at the other end of the black hole. As if in the world there were no places to escape to, only places to flee.

The Underground Railroad shines a light on the tensions and distrust that we still experience today. It questions the notion of freedom and attempts to hold a mirror up to the “true face of America.” The writing was emotionally distancing for me, but it was thought-provoking and a unique take on the subject.  It won’t do you any favors on a history exam, but it goes much deeper than that. I finished the book wanting to read everything Colson Whitehead has ever written!

If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America. It was a joke, then, from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.

If you liked this book, you might want to try:
• Gulliver’s Travels – Mentioned in the story and the editor’s letter.
• Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man – It has been a long time since I read it, but I remember it feeling authentic and strange at the same time.
• We Love You, Charlie Freeman  – It’s primarily contemporary and has a more young adult feel, but it also shares many themes. I was reminded of Nymphadora, Dr. Gardner, and Miss Toneybee-Leroy many times!
• The Retrieval – (Netflix) Time period, tough choices.

“We can’t save everyone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. Sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth. Nothing’s going to grow in this mean cold, but we can still have flowers.”

Nothing belongs to you.

Eight-year-old Wavonna Quinn has lived a tough life. Her father is neglectful, her mother is a drug addict, and she has full responsibility of raising her baby brother. When one of her father’s associates, Kellan, crashes in front of the Quinn’s farmhouse, an instant connection forms between Wavy and Kellan. Twenty-year-old Kellan takes on a paternal role and Wavy develops an innocent crush on him. As time progresses the relationship crosses more and more boundaries; the type of things that might be okay between a parent and child, but are eyebrow-raising for a family friend. When Wavy turns 13, the relationship escalates significantly. There is major fall-out when the extent of their relationship is exposed.

Summer had so many tricks. The nights lasted longer than the days, even though the angle of the Earth’s axis meant that was impossible. The night couldn’t be longer, but summer made it seem that way. Summer sneaked time for me, taking a minute from February, three minutes from English class in March, ten whole minutes from a boring Thursday in April. Summer stole time to give me another hour under the stars with Kellen.

Bryn Greenwood delicately handles a controversial subject. She doesn’t take a stance; she lets the characters tell their stories. The writing sets the stage perfectly, but it never gets in the way. It is primarily set in the mid-1970s/mid-1980s in the rural midwest, within driving distance of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The story is revealed through multiple perspectives. We hear from both Wavy and Kellan, but we also hear from outsiders who witness this relationship slowly unfold. The outsider perspectives reminded me of watching a Dateline special, where family and friends analyze their loved one’s lives after a tragic event. Some of the individuals are uncomfortable with what appears to be happening but say nothing, while others are actively encouraging it. A character who has only known Wavy as an adult is eventually introduced and it was interesting to see her reaction to the situation.

Wavy made the face that meant, “Do you know what it’s like being me?” I honestly didn’t want to know, because she was pretty fucked up. I liked to play at tragedy, but she drank it out of her baby bottle.

If you’ve seen Sons of Anarchy, you’ll have a hint of the type of environment Wavy grew up in, except these people cook meth. To give you a sense of what the Quinn kids are dealing with, here is eight-year-old Wavy talking about her 2-year-old brother: “At least pretty soon he would be big enough to take care of himself. Next year.” Wavy is a unique and memorable character. She hates being touched and she refuses to talk or eat in front of others. She is gutsy and determined:“The harder a thing was, the more likely she’d be able to do it.“ Kellan and Wavy are both from neglectful homes and neither have a model for healthy relationships, romantic or otherwise.  The relationship doesn’t begin with a romantic or sexual component. Neither of them are used to being treated as important and they seek each other out for the emotional connection.

God also didn’t want you to “pollute yourself.” Touching yourself for pleasure wasn’t what God designed your temple for, according to Charlotte. Either God was stupid or Charlotte was confused, because my temple was clearly designed for that.

A relationship between a grown man and a young girl/teenager is an uncomfortable subject. There were several parts that made me queasy. The author never lets you forget how small and young Wavy is. Sometimes I even became uncomfortable with my own reactions! By the end, I was frequently irritated with Wavy’s aunt who was only trying to protect Wavy. As Wavy grows into adulthood, her aunt’s actions felt more about punishing her than protecting her. But even with my irritation, I know I would feel the same way in her situation!

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I kept coming back to the Gospel. Wavy spoke in Apocrypha.

I didn’t finish the book thinking, “Wow, this is an ideal situation.” Nothing in Wavy’s life is ideal. The author does an amazing job of illustrating how this happened for these two people. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly or the wonderful. (Perfect title, by the way!) This book is about the gray areas of life, even those that will be unpalatable for most. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is not for everyone and that is completely understandable! There is a line in Robert Ebert’s review defending accusations against the movie Pretty Baby and this sentiment made me think of this book: “It’s an evocation of a time and a place and a sad chapter of Americana.” Likewise, the relationship between Wavy and Kellan is a product of a certain environment. If you are able to compartmentalize and see this story as the unique experience of two people, then I highly recommend this book.

I mostly liked high school. I liked learning things. How numbers worked together to explain the stars. How molecules made the world. All the ugly and wonderful things people had done in the last two thousand years.

---

Wavy loves stars and some of my favorite passages were those with space imagery. My favorite passage:

I’d been wrong about the Earth’s rotation slowing. It went on as steadily as always, and the afternoon was long gone. To the west, Venus and Jupiter held court with the setting sun. A few days before, the Magellan spacecraft had reached Venus, and started sending back pictures. Below the horizon lay Orion, resting until autumn, when he would rise over the meadow with only the cows to see him.

I thought then of Voyager 1 and 2, so far away. They were launched the same year I met Kellen, and now they had reached the end of our solar system. Although their programs were being powered down one by one, they traveled on. NASA said that in another twenty-five years, they would exit our heliosphere and cross into interstellar space. In another three hundred thousand years, Voyager 2 might reach as far as the star Sirius, but it would never come home.

I was moving forward into space, but I would never come home again.

This book was inspired by House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, which I haven’t read. As a lifelong resident of Southeast Texas, I was really interested in the Houston setting of this modern version. I enjoyed the writing, the sense of place, and the social commentary, but I wasn’t sold on the love story.

The key to unhappiness—always wantin’ to be somewhere else instead of where you are.

Thirty-year-old Vivienne is the last heir to the Cally Petroleum fortune. While the Cally name remains influential, the fortune has dwindled. Vivienne always thought that there was a certain script to her life, but she’s starting to think that she wants more out of life. Preston Duffin has known Vivienne since childhood and their social circles intersect. He thinks Vivienne is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and that she can be so much more than she is. Vivienne is stirred by the way Preston makes her think about her life differently and how he awakens a different part of her, a part that she is not entirely comfortable with. 

“[Her parents] loved each other enough at one point to marry and make a life—her own life—so she couldn’t only be the product of loss and collapse. The resolution would be a happy, comfortable married life for herself, with years of love to counteract all the fighting.”

Vivienne is trying to figure out her place in life and I liked her willingness to question her life’s course. With no actual money to her name, she decides she can either marry a wealthy man or start mingling with the lower classes. The divergence of her values with her social circle’s become more and more apparent; she is comfortable with her sexuality and sees faith as a more personal endeavor. She starts to feel like there could be more to life than social engagements and finding a husband to support her. On the flip side, she has always had money or prominence to fall back on, so she has never had to deal with consequences or the invisibility that comes with being poor

Religion seemed to be a thing he kept in a special compartment in his brain for the sake of sometimes acting serious, because that was the way he thought Men should be. In this compartment he also kept his opinions on the way Women should be. There was a time for hunting and a time for Jesus, but as far as Vivienne could tell, Jesus was never available during hunting hours, or work hours, and certainly not during the hours he spent receiving blow jobs from her. In the three months, they’d been dating Vivienne had picked up that he had low expectations and little respect for the women he’d had sex with (and from what Vivienne had heard, there’d been many), but of women he took seriously, he expected angelic behavior and the same compartmentalized devotion to Jesus.

I have recently read Everybody Rise and Eligible, which are also modern takes on classic novels with WASPy women on the search for wealthy husbands. I rate A Wife of Noble Character firmly in the middle. It’s not over-the-top ridiculous like Eligible, but it has more humor and a more introspective heroine than Everybody Rise. The story alternates between the perspectives of Vivienne and Preston, but it’s mostly from Vivienne’s perspective. I did not connect to the story immediately; I wasn’t interested until the 10% point when Vivienne begins to interact with her friends at a Memorial Day party. 
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It was tough living without Texas, even in a place as great as Paris. Still, he was reluctant. It was Texas, after all, and again. He felt very paradoxical and grumpy when he thought about it, remembering vividly all the things he couldn’t stand about it (he ran through his top three: guns, humidity, mosquitos) and how puffy and grand he’d felt in leaving it, and yet—and yet what? Well, he just missed it.

The main reason I chose this book is that it’s set in Houston. It is fun to be able to picture the actual setting, rather than Generic Boulevard #3. There are some fun bits of Texas history mentioned too! The personalities portrayed were so familiar to me: the “devout” boyfriend with inconsistent views on sex, the good ‘ol boy businessman, and the sassy, folksy mom full of sexist advice. I loved the book most when it was in social commentary mode. At one point Vivienne commits a social faux pax and the advice to rectify the situation is simultaneously amusing and horrifying. I also laughed at the ultimate East Texas argument-ender: “I’m not gonna debate Scripture with you.” One of my favorite characters in the book was from my hometown of Beaumont. This character is wise, has a great sense of perspective, and fled Beaumont as soon as she could! 😉 (For reference, the Beaumont-Port Arthur area was ranked 6th on MarketWatch’s list of miserable cities.) Another favorite was Vivienne’s frenemy Karlie, a lifestyle blogger with a mean streak.

Nothing in her experience had prepared her for being kissed by a man with whom she couldn’t see her life spelled out, should she choose to spend her life with him. His kiss opened a door in her mind, as most kisses did, except she couldn’t see past the door into the next month and year and decade. She couldn’t even see the next day—not even, she realized, the next hour.

My least favorite part was the romantic drama between Vivienne and Preston. I never felt that their history was authentic and I didn’t want the ending I was supposed to want. I really disliked being inside Preston’s head. He gives off a “nice guy” vibe. The book opens with Preston and Vivienne running into each other at Rice University quad. They go back to his apartment and he proceeds to analyze and critique her life. “He was always jabbing her, questioning her, finding fault with her desires.” His behavior and hypocrisy are eventually addressed, but I didn’t ever see a reason for these two people to be so enchanted with each other. We only directly witness three major interactions between them before they are separated: 1) the aforementioned quad conversation 2) a few hours together at a Memorial Day party 3) lustful moments at her best friend’s wedding. Preston has a fixation on Vivienne’s beauty and seems to like who she could be more than who she is. I might have grudgingly accepted the ending, but I was disappointed by the epilogue. It didn’t feel earned. [spoiler] It was one of those tidy romantic comedy endings, where every minor character plays a part.[/spoiler] However, I did think the last line was a nice touch.

We’re all trying to be braver and more compassionate people than we are, and when this is too much to ask of ourselves, at least we’re trying. I think it means something to try.

While I didn’t like the romance, I liked Vivienne and I felt compelled to keep reading and see how her story was going to end. People who liked or almost liked Everybody Rise will enjoy this book. I’m going to give myself a break from this genre.

The changes that had brought her back here instead felt as subtle as the changes in the big trees arching against the pink sky. They looked no different to her eye, but the time had breathed through them as well.

Anne and Marco Conti have plans to attend a dinner party next door, but the babysitter cancels at the last minute and their neighbor is demanding a child-free evening. Against Anne’s better judgment, Marco convinces her to leave their six-month-old baby at home. They’ll take the baby monitor and check on her every half hour. Everything will be fine! But when they return home, the front door is ajar. They race upstairs to the crib and it’s empty! The baby is too young to escape the crib by herself, so who broke into their house and took her?

[Anne] is filled with rage, but she is careful not to show it. She has had a lot of practice feeling anger without showing it. She dissembles. Isn’t that what everyone does? Everyone is faking it, all of them pretending to be something they’re not. the whole world is built on lies and deceit.

I read this book way too fast to think about it very critically. I didn’t rate this four stars because it was groundbreaking or for any well-developed characters. I rated it four stars because I had so much fun reading it! When I put my e-reader down to go to bed, it was calling to me from the nightstand: “WE MUST FIND BABY CORA!” It reminded me of my school years, when I would race through multiple library books every week and be completely enthralled by all of them. It’s not always easy to recapture that feeling as an adult, so I appreciate any book that can make that happen. I was doubtful it would maintain momentum after we discover the basics of what happened halfway through (and I pretty much figured out the rest of the story from there), but the tension was well-sustained. There’s much more to the story!

vardenafil canadian pharmacy The best part about Calvin is that each of us can see a bit of themselves in Calvin. Persons suffering from gout prescription order viagra without are benefited by regular consumption of milk. About 70% of patients with renal http://amerikabulteni.com/ viagra pills online hematuria occurs it. It is of utmost importance to realize that hits satisfy two types of human needs not catered for by long-term established brands: online viagra http://amerikabulteni.com/2012/04/13/yilin-ikinci-13ncu-cumasi-paraskevidekatriafobikler-icin-bir-13ncu-cuma-daha-var/ “Unsatisfiable needs” – these are wishes that cannot be realized (not to a full extent), however, human beings will relentlessly attempt to fulfill them, while deceiving themselves that it is possible to determine this time by seeking consultation with the expert. Through the voice of an omniscient narrator, we get a glimpse into the minds of many of the characters. The emotionally detached, present tense narration made me feel even more anxious. Here is a link to the first chapter on the author’s page, so you can get a sense of the writing style. (I did have a few issues while reading, but those appear to be fixed in the finished version.) The primary characters are Anne, Marco, and Detective Rasbach. Even though I got to read everyone’s thoughts, I still wasn’t sure who to trust. Marco feels pressure because he is the one who came up with the idea to leave the baby at home and he was the last one to see her. He knows that Anne’s wealthy parents are counting this as yet another strike against him. Anne’s postpartum depression put her under suspicion and she can’t even trust her own memories. Detective Rasbach knows the parents are usually involved in cases like this, but he also knows not to expect anything. Everyone is on his suspect list!

There were a couple things at the end that bothered me. The detective’s revelations at the end didn’t feel earned and I didn’t like how one of the minor characters ended up being tied in. But that last page totally put an evil smile on my face, which subsequently made me feel like a terrible person! This book was a lot of fun. It’s a great cure for a reading slump!