My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

Everyone’s life looks fun on social media; that’s the sorcery of it. Your soul may be slowly decaying, but there’s a filter for that.

I like my friends, and we keep each other entertained. But lately, I feel like more of a lone wolf— or maybe I’m just running with the wrong pack.

I roll down the windows to let in the last gasp of summer. There is a particular richness to early September, when the sunlight is broad and lazy.

Time is a vapor, impossible to measure.

They say that hearing is the last sense to go. I want to say something profound before it’s too late, but there is no script for this moment. All I can think to say is, “Thank you,” so I say it over and over. Thank you. Thank you. “Thank you for loving me, Dad,” I say one last time. “I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I always will.”

It just wasn’t what I expected— marriage, motherhood. And at some point, I realized I only had one life. So why shouldn’t it be the one I actually want?

Though I have said it many times, only now do I fully believe it to be true: a good oracle shows you what you already know.

My Review:

This emotive tale was stunningly perceptive and squeezed my cold heart, put hot rocks in my throat, and stung my eyes on more than one occasion. Tory Henwood Hoen has mad skills and serious word voodoo. I fell into a poignant and cunningly created vortex and remained engaged, and on the hook, despite the somewhat disconcerting tightening I occasionally noted in my chest. She achieved an impossibly delicate balance between amusing wry wit and thought-provoking insights that slowed my reading to consider and savor. Her well-crafted characters were remarkably human, realistically flawed, and drew me in like a magnet. I covet her skills and am now a devoted acolyte.