Octavio Solis’s Reviews > The Given World > Status Update

“Somewhere in the unbreakable heart of the oblivious desert.”

Gorgeous evocation of a condition of life lived on the edge.

A marvelous book of the San Francisco I used to know. My beloved Sunset District is there, with the perennial fog and Ocean Beach almost standing out as characters in the novel. But no. This is Riley's journey and she is one tightly-wound enigma wholly cut from original cloth. she's a shimmering portrait of deep hurt, of pain sublimated to such a subconscious level that you can't help but love her for it.

This novel keeps offering wonderful, surprising turns at every chapter. Changes in character perspective, in voice, time, place and experience. And yet it maintains a remarkably nuanced tone throughout.