Wow! I loved this book!! If I didn't have dogs that needed walking, I might have finished the second half in one sitting. As in so many good books, the Island and the Waters (the swampland around the island) were important characters in the story. The author's descriptions of the setting were so beautiful and so complete that I felt them come alive.

The women in the story reminded me of the women in Toni Morrison's 'Song of Solomon', strong, independent, and non-conforming. I was rooting for all of them, even when they were clearly in conflict with each other.

I would recommend this book to everyone. Get ready for a beautiful world inhabited by tough, beautiful and complicated women!

I love how intimate and personal short stories can be. The best ones looks like just a peek into a full and detailed world that mostly remains in the author's head. Almost every story in this collection by Ms. Varna satisfied all of these expectations and more. The majority of the stories are written in the first person which increases their intimacy and emotional pull. They all read as fresh and unique, while clearly being written by the same person. There are old, young, male, female, vulnerable and funny characters throughout.

My favorite two stories are 'The Irates' and 'Eighteen Girls'. But don't take my word for it, you should read them all!

I found this book to be a heartbreakingly realistic tale of the havoc a mental illness diagnosis can have on a family. As the mother of a child on the autism spectrum, so many of the situations the author and her family experienced brought back memories, sad, scary, confusing and wonderful memories.

I am not, however, a fan of the author's writing style. At times the tale jumped from topic to topic and from minute detail to impossibly large generalizations in a single paragraph which was very distracting. There were also sweeping summaries at the end of a number of chapters which made me think I had reached the end of the book. Perhaps I should have read only a single chapter at each sitting. Once again, this was very distracting making the book seem disjointed.

I will recommend this book to the extended family of anyone who has psychosis in their family to provide a window into what their nuclear family may be experiencing.