Awww!
This book totally makes me squeal (in my mind, so as not to disturb those around me), "Awww!" Like the Portlandia dumpster diver. I can't find a Portlandia Aww meme and am too lazy to make my own, so just imagine it here and move along.

Here are the things that just tickled me pink (I'm already pink, though)(well, kind of an olive pink, so...pinive. I'm pinive)(no, not oink. Don't even)
-The mayor sports ornamental canes and too-short shorts! Bwahahaha! Such perfect small-town imagery, it cracked me up so much.
--Finding out your dad(s) isn't your dad! YES! YES! I know all about this! And the worry, the "Crap! I may have dated my brother because I didn't know we were related!" when you're in a small town and both parents live there! OMG! YES!
---Yay for Library Love even if the librarians start out as stereotypes. But that the author moved beyond the stereotypes to explore the other stereotype (that librarians are quirky and hard to figure out until you get to know them) = SO MUCH LOVE!
----Awww! Monsters with little dead people dolls! Adorable!

I really enjoyed listening to this. I liked the reader quite well, I liked the story, I liked the family history being untangled (I'm a sucker for those stories), I liked the setting and how it was based on James Fenimore Cooper's town and works, I liked the dead lake monster. I liked it all...except Willie.
It's not that I didn't like Willie, per se, but that I was bored by her, specifically. In my mind, she was more of a hub, the reason we got to hear all these other stories. She seemed younger than her 27 (28?) years; she was ridiculously self-involved which didn't seem to make sense to my mind. She's been out in the Alaskan tundra, digging up bodies. Well, a body. Maybe. I figured she'd be tougher, would have a more sophisticated worldview or something. I dunno. I didn't think she'd act like a first-time-around college student who just realized she'd been knocked up by a professor. Maybe everyone reacts to being knocked up by a professor in the same fashion, no matter her age or experiences? I dunno. All I know is that when Willie was talking, I was yawning.
And that led me to have half-tepid feelings at the end. The discovery of her father seemed anticlimactic to me. Actually, I didn't even care. I loved her family history and everything she dug up, but the actual revealing of the dad? I was uninterested.
At the same time, the other part of the ending, the monster, made me happy. It was autorenewal for the town, much like Willie was autorenewal for the townsfolk in a way. Ok, actually no. She wasn't that at all. But the monster = a rebirthiness and now the town can enter another era, a new Glimmy era? I'm sure the monster signifies something deeper, grander than what I'm picking up, but I don't care because I just loved the whole concept.
And the ghost. The ghost in the house. I liked how that was treated as just another aspect of life in this strange little place that never changes.
But not Willie. I did not like Willie.
I am now determined to go read the rest of Cooper's works, having previously only read The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans So I will be a better educated individual thanks to this story!

I was left with one lingering question, though: Aristables Mudge (I'm taking a wild guess at that spelling), the apothecary and then pharmacist. What is his story??