Since, like many people, I discovered Maggie Smith when “Good Bones” turned up on my internet, I felt implicated in this story from the beginning. Not in a bad way; in a way that is a testament to Smith’s power to create connection through her language. She’s so good and so thoughtful and so willing to use words to carefully make sense out of the world. 
Sometimes you read an author and you wish you could write like they do. Sometimes they’re just so far ahead that all you think is “I’m glad someone out there can write like that.”

This book taps into any number of odd emotional responses on my end - I suspect her absolute honesty about her experiences coupled with her ability to name and speak them means that my encounter with her world is one of dis/connecting to a story I know. Which is a good thing; but a strange one.