There's something truly human about enjoying the reflection of yourself in a story. Is there something else, though, about feeling TOO seen? I LOVE books that speak to something innate in me, like Cristina Henríquez's writing that features Panamanian Americans. However, there's something uncomfortable about seeing inner thoughts splayed on a page; a little devastating, to be honest.

I like relating to characters, but sometimes the reflection of myself I see is too damning. Not as in, this character is bad, and I am therefore bad. Nothing so blunt as that. With THE GOLDEN STATE, I was taken back to a time when my husband went on his final tour with his band and I was left in our two-bedroom Los Angeles apartment with our infant daughter. It was a challenging time for many reasons—and a lot of them are explored in THE GOLDEN STATE. I felt itchy. I felt TOO SEEN. I wanted to hide. I wanted to throw up. At times, I was literally wringing my hands around the nearest object as I listened to this book.

Should I tell you more about the book? HA. The protagonist of THE GOLDEN STATE, Daphne, has an 18-month-old named Honey. Daphne's Turkish husband has been unable to return to the United States due to a 'click-of-the-mouse' error with his green card. He's been stuck in Turkey for months, and Daphne is at her wit's end with her job, so she takes Honey out of daycare and drives to her late mother's mobile home in northern California. The minutiae of daily life with a toddler is detailed, the inner workings of Daphne displayed. It all provoked such feelings in me that I felt unable to get beyond it, and that's on me.

Maybe, given all I've said here (quite inarticulately), this should be a five star read? But in the end, I felt a wave of relief when I said goodbye to Daphne and Honey and the memories they conjured up in me.