An enjoyable, thoughtful read, although I did find it a little dragged out in the endless running of Joanie and Scout, and I don't believe I find Joanie anywhere near as charming as the author does. Little Scout on the other hand was very well done. It's just unfortunate that I was far more interested in (and invested in) her barely explored relationship with her dad than all the time spent on her mother.

Joanie's very underlined irresponsibility did make the ending somewhat obvious, and took away from some of the potential emotional conflict, I think, but it didn't damage the basic readability of the book much.