A mother with Parkinson’s, Elena, believes her daughter did not commit suicide and embarks on a physical and mental arduous journey to come to a central truth. It is a novel that starts small and ends large; from the alleged suicide of her daughter to a harrowing journey that, because it is internal and intersectional, becomes something about multiple systemic and insidious ways in which society removes agency from women and those not performing to puritanical standards.

It very much has no concern with genre expectations, as most literary intersections tend to be. My largest issue is with the formatting, though. I think it’s supposed to reflect, somewhat, the mental state of the protagonist, but it doesn’t actually seem formatted as such. Coupled with a necessary much retreading of ground to more effectively hit on memory issues Elena has, it creates an effect that constantly excises the reader from the text. Perhaps the formatting is supposed to be random, but because it’s walls and walls of text I spent my time looking for an answer and never found a satisfactory one.

However, it’s certainly novel and interesting, and has very human, well-rendered characters—primarily featuring women. None feel archetypical and the plot also has that quality. I liked it quite a bit… after I just rolled with the unusual dense prose that I couldn’t understand the reason for.