Like with many books that are five star favorites, it’s hard to articulate why I adored this novel. It has many elements in common with books I love: intricately connected storylines, decades long family drama, multiple narrators, and a dash of the mystical or philosophical. It also happens to be another book wherein death is a central theme, in a year that it has been heavy on my mind. I am not sure if it’s the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, because I am not intentionally picking out books about death, but they just keep popping up and end up being the right book at the right time.
I voraciously devoured Shapiro’s words. The tone is quietly urgent, and my heart was in my throat for almost the entirety of this book. I ached for these characters and I was so moved by the author’s prose.
For read alike books, I kept feeling like this was a mash up of Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane and The One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood.❤️