Jane and her siblings live with their mother, a famous poet, in a small house by the ocean. A preacher woman, Nellie, ropes Jane into helping her distribute Bibles, and a local woman blackmails Jane into babysitting five children. Jane is pulled into the town drama, and discovers one of her mother’s past boyfriends might be Jane’s father.

I LOVED the writing style in this book! It’s beautifully poetic and insightful with poignant little observations.

But I did not like the story or the characters. The story is weird. Nellie, the preacher, thinks she has the power of energy healing and drags Jane into her quest for supernatural power. That whole storyline was idiotic and made no sense with the rest of the plot.

Jane’s mother has several boyfriends from her past who show up, and Jane wonders which of them fathered her and her siblings. But that storyline is never resolved, and both Jane and the reader are left wondering.

Jane herself never DOES anything. She just stands around waiting for things to happen to her. Only one time in the entire book does Jane actually take a decisive action. The rest of the time she waits for other people to do things, say things, and make the decisions. She is such a boring character.

But the writing! It’s just so entrancing and whimsical and poignant.
It almost makes up for the boring characters and random plot. Almost.