Mara is suffering from a staggering loss and leaves her family for a tourist town by the sea. With little money and food, she spends her nights sleeping on the beach and walking into the water. She eventually gets a job at a wine store and finds a kinship with its equally lost owner, Simon. It's here that she starts to heal, while reworking herself into someone who learns how to live with grief and forge new love.

I’ll admit, at first I was worried that this story—written with spare language and dense with despair—was too raw for me to enjoy. But, in the end, I really liked it. Mara's struggle and eventual calm were beautifully depicted on the page. Each beat of her story, from reminisces and tragedies of her past to the dangers and joys of her present build up one by one to fill her blank-page personality into a compelling character and an intense character study.

This book at times pulses too strong with grief, but that strength leads to a growth and change for Mara that truly feels earned. An evocative book!