When simmering family tensions and teenage relationships reach the boiling point, each character must decide how to continue with their lives.
I liked the setup of this book; a catastrophe introduces us to everyone and then the events which precipitated it are unveiled in the rest of the story. That said, it also makes me want to skip to the end or speed read to find the link. Not your typical misunderstanding tragedy, as the differences in the viewpoints and beliefs of the characters are subtly painted. Yet, I was left disappointed as it seemed as if the free-spirited Mia was a bit too wise, the loyalty of her daughter, Pearl, somewhat unbelievable and the resolution of Izzy and her mother suggestive perhaps of the author's own experience.
Quotes:
p. 122 - "To a parent, your child wasn't just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once....It was a place you could take refuge, if you knew how to get in. And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again."
p. 248 - "Pearl's caresses had become rare - a peck on the cheek, a one-armed, half-hearted hug - and all the more precious because of that. It was the way of things, Mia though to herself, but how hard it was...when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all."
Published: 2017 Read: December 2019 Genre: Fiction
