It's probably going to take me a little while to let this settle in. It was a very emotional book for me to read. I've never lived in any place so destitute, so small, so isolated. But it all felt as if I had.

***

Serendipitously, I followed up this reading with Pie. It was a good pairing, because the two address some of the same issues, but in age-appropriate ways. But it also gave me a foil and a different angle.

Cat is grieving because her best friend has been horribly attacked, beaten with a baseball bat, tied to a gas pump with a nozzle placed down his throat, and left for dead. In the tradition of Nancy Drew, Cat sets out to discover whodunnit, but along the way she discovers there are more important questions. Cat's sleuthing forces her to interact with members of her community, to listen to people she may never have spoken with before, and she learns, and grows, and engages. In the end the mystery is solved, but more importantly, she's become a part of the community again. For all the pain, and lord, there is surely a great deal of pain, both in Cat's life and in the lives of those around her, there is also light in shared humanity.

"Dickensian" gets used a great deal, but one of the most important aspects of his work, to me, is that he never slighted his characters because of their circumstances, and he cared about a just society. Myracle has written a Dickensian book, and as hard as it can be at times to read, I think it can't help but make the reader a better person.

Library copy.