2022: I enjoyed this book, but I am too young to be the true target audience.

My mother actually listened to a part of this audiobook with me, and she was all over it. That makes perfect sense. Also, she's the aging mother of an only child, so there were a lot of parallels for her to relate to (although I sincerely hope that's where the parallels between me and Christopher end, yikes). I could clearly remember my mother saying a bunch of dialogue attributed to Olive in the book. And when she talks about all of the plans that she had for her son, and how he through them all away to pursue his own life?

It did take me a couple of chapters to get the hang of the way the characters were floating in and out of the various vignettes. It was actually pretty difficult to get a grasp on what time period we were in; I wasn't sure if maybe there were some clues in the paperback that I was missing in the audiobook? And the tone shift for the kidnapping story was very abrupt.

There is some hilarious only child slander (that I took to be funny, but it's a fine line) and some gentle homophobia that probably isn't everyone's cup of tea (but did lead to an incredible scene in which Olive calls everyone she knows to complain that her new crush is a Republican). Mostly, I just really enjoyed listening to a scene that takes place in Cooks Corner while driving through :)