Review of REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt

 3 Stars

If you are looking for a light, simple read with a predictably happy ending, this book is for you.

Seventy-year-old Tova Sullivan works as a nighttime cleaner at a small aquarium near Puget Sound in Washington State.  Recently widowed, she likes to keep busy:  “She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.”  She has never fully recovered from the loss of her 18-year-old son Erik over three decades earlier.  At the aquarium, she establishes a relationship with Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus who is approaching the end of his life.  She also meets Cameron, a feckless man who has come north from California looking for his father. 

Some of the chapters are narrated by Marcellus, and these are the most interesting.  I know that octopuses are ranked as the most intelligent invertebrates, but Marcellus is truly exceptional, so the reader needs to suspend disbelief.  He even possesses emotional intelligence.  He is a curmudgeon who has a high opinion of himself but not of humans.  I loved his comments on humans whom he calls “dull and blundering.”  I would have preferred more chapters from his point of view.

The character who is most irritating is Cameron.  He is thirty years old, but behaves like a whiny, selfish teenager who blames others, never taking personal responsibility for his actions.  He is supposed to be intelligent but this claim is never supported by his actions.  Even though he has been shown the meaning of an inscription on one school ring, he misconstrues the engraving on another?  When searching for a wealthy, rather famous, man, he never conducts an internet search or uses social media?

On the other hand, Tova is a totally likeable character with whom the reader cannot but empathize.  She has had so much loss in her life, and now she is growing old alone.  The death of her son has scarred her; the conclusion that he committed suicide only adds to her grief.  Despite her suffering, she is kind to everyone she meets.

The plot is predictable.  Marcellus actually figures out how Tova and Cameron’s stories intertwine.  The interest lies in how the cephalopod can help them see what seems so obvious to him.  It does take a while so there are times the reader may find him/herself agreeing with Marcellus’s low opinion of human intelligence.

The book’s message seems to be the importance of making meaningful connections.  Opening up one’s mind and heart to others (whether a cat, an octopus, or another human) can only enrich one’s life. 

This is not a literary masterpiece, but an enjoyable piece of escapist fiction.  Though a bit too sweet and sentimental, it is charming and warm-hearted, a feel-good story. 

Review of EVERYTHING THERE IS by M. G. Vassanji (New Release)

 4 Stars

The novel begins in 1971.  Nurul Islam is a world-renowned physicist from Pakistan living and working in London.  He is happily married to Sakina Begum with whom he has three children.  His life changes when he travels to the U.S. to give a lecture at Harvard.  He meets Hilary Chase, a graduate student, and falls in love.  But it is not just this new relationship that threatens his world.  He is accused of plagiarism.  Then his comments about the nature of physics and God attract the attention and ire of fundamentalist Muslims.  And he makes enemies of Pakistani government and military leaders because of his opposition to the development of a nuclear bomb.  This is the story of a man facing forces that threaten all that he has worked to achieve.

This is very much a character study of a man who “resolved to be as good and devout a man as he could” but is definitely flawed.  He comes “from a backward place called Pirmai in Pakistan” but because of his intelligence and hard work, achieves great success.  When he “got the best matriculation result ever in the whole of Punjab,” his entire community celebrates.  He becomes in fact the pride of his nation and becomes accustomed to adulation:  “Young people from South Asia normally came in his presence to touch his feet, out of gratitude and respect.”  Even his name which means Light of Islam proclaims his specialness. 

It is not surprising that the word pride appears a dozen times; arrogance is also repeated.  Certainly, he behaves arrogantly at times; he is often dismissive of students, touting his accomplishments versus theirs at the same age.  Sakina warns him, “’Too much thinking about these matters is not good.  It is pride itself.’”  Nurul understands she is warning him about being like Azazel, considered to be amongst the nearest to God’s throne, but because he sinned through pride, he became a devil.  Nurul does question whether he was “simply callous and greedy for glory” and he tells his father, “’Life at the top of . . . one’s field . . . causes a lot of uncertainty and competitiveness – hassad.  There is a word in English, hubris- . . . It means a certain kind of pride, a feeling of infallibility . . . I sometimes think I have it.’”    Even his wife mentions his arrogance in believing that “’Nothing could happen to him.’”  Nurul certainly pays a high price for his thinking he is somehow above others and untouchable.

It is impossible, however, not to feel sympathy for Nurul.  He has been gifted from childhood but “’a gift is also a burden – of responsibility.’”  He admits, “He could not forget, of course, that he was the only living Muslim scientist of note.  That was a matter of pride but also a burden.”  He would like the Nobel Prize for himself “but the Nobel was one gift he could give to his mother and father, to his country, and of course to his small beleaguered Shirazi sect.”  He is insecure; he has a dream which he describes as terrifying where eminent scientists laugh at him and he wakes up with the fear that he’s not one of the best.  He worries that at forty he is getting old and losing his mental agility so it’s too late to make any significant discoveries. 

A character who particularly interested me is Sakina.  She had no choice in marrying Nurul; theirs was an arranged marriage.  She is unschooled, “removed from school after grade six,” and then Nurul brings her to England where she has to learn the language and culture.  She admits to herself that “she would have preferred a simpler, less gifted man; that would have been better for them both.  And with a large family around her, in surroundings she knew well, she would not have been lonely.  She would have had no apprehension about talking to people, speaking like the others, dressing like them.”  And she is definitely lonely:  “She had no one to talk to, to express . . .  anxieties.  Here in London you dared not show any cracks in your exterior.”  Then when she returns to visit Pakistan, she is “treated as an honoured and fortunate guest, an ‘England-returned,’ who lived well . . . what concerns could she have?”  She feels a “’faariner.’  Pardesi.  Everywhere.” 

Of course, she is not the only one who is different.  Nurul “was different in every way:  an Asian Muslim in a white country, a devout Muslim scientist among mostly atheist or agnostic colleagues of Jewish and Christian backgrounds, a persecuted minority in his own country.”  And then there’s Hilary, one of the few women scientists.

This is not a plot-driven novel.  The story also unfolds slowly.  But those who love a novel of character will love this one.  I certainly did.  And that closing sentence is absolutely perfect!

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of GIN, TURPENTINE, PENNYROYAL, RUE by Christine Higdon (New Release)

 4 Stars

In 2018, I read Christine Higdon’s debut novel, The Very Marrow of Our Bones (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2018/04/review-of-very-marrow-of-our-bones-by.html).  Because I really liked it, I looked forward to reading her sophomore book.  I enjoyed it very much.

The book focuses on the lives of the four McKenzie sisters living in Vancouver in 1922.  Georgina, the eldest, is married to Victor, a man who provides her financial security but does not make her happy.  Morag is happily married and newly pregnant; her husband Llewellyn is a policeman who is also a rum-runner.  Isla is secretly in love with Llewellyn; finding herself pregnant, she has a back-street abortion that nearly results in her death.  Harriet-Jean, the youngest, is confused because of her feelings for another woman, Flore Rozema.  The family also includes Ahmie, the women’s mother who is addicted to laudanum, and Rue, a beagle rescued by Harriet.

I loved how there is no difficulty differentiating the sisters.  Each emerges as a distinct character.  Georgina yearns for more - opportunities that her working class family could not provide.  Morag is blissfully happy, while Isla, though she is seen as “opinionated and fearless, and defiant,” has regret as a constant companion.  Harriet-Jean struggles with her feelings for a woman in a world where homophobic violence is common.  I found myself empathizing with each woman.  For instance, Georgina may be “imperious . . . so rarely soft, so rarely amiable,” but her back story cannot but move the reader.  Even Ahmie who is an ineffectual mother deserves sympathy for all that she has endured. 

The novel is excellent at describing the realities of life in the 1920s, especially for women.  It is men who decide what a woman can and cannot do.  Life for a pregnant, married woman is untenable:  “’A child out of wedlock is a prison sentence for a woman.  And not only that, she’d be a victim of society’s disapprobation for the rest of her life.’”  Flore describes Isla’s life if she’d had the baby:  she’d “’be seen as a fallen woman.  By virtually every human being whose feet trod this earth.  Lose her job.  Be sneered at and judged by even the shortest pillars of society.  The self-righteous, the hypocritical.’”  Since abortion is illegal, women turn to “’Gin.  Turpentine.  Pennyroyal.  Rue. . . . Hat pin.  Crochet hook.  Knitting needle.  Bicycle spoke.’” 

But it is not just the harsh realities of women’s lives that are depicted.  A man is badly beaten because he is a homosexual.  Georgina’s husband rails against “the tide of Oriental immigration.”  Disparaging comments are made about other immigrants such as Italians.  Wealthy women gather to “bemoan the plight of the poor.  Debate the causes of poverty (laziness, uncleanliness, lack of faith, undesirable hereditary traits, too much drink).”  Men lose their lives in war and to the pandemic and leave shattered families. 

Though set one hundred years in the past, the book is so relevant to the present.  The reversal of abortion laws in the U.S. may mean women must once again turn to dangerous ways of ending unwanted pregnancies.  Intolerance toward gay and Trans people seems to be increasing.  Drug addiction, demonization of immigrants, and police corruption continue to be problems.   Isla wonders “How different will life be for . . . children who arrived in the world nearly a generation after my sisters and me?”  The answer is not positive. 

The book is narrated from the perspective of various characters.  The most unusual is that of Rue.  I enjoyed his comments about the humans he encounters.  He provides comic relief, though the humour is sometimes dark.  For instance, when he hears about shell shock, he says, “I paid careful attention to where I placed my feet when walking with Rasia on the shell-strewn beaches near our abode, lest I be shocked.”

I love the author’s figures of speech.  A dull and disappointing man is “a tire puncture on one’s bicycle the morning of a planned excursion, an empty jelly jar.”  A confused man standing in a doorway is “lost as Franklin was, there in his own frozen Northwest Passage.”

The book examines a number of serious and important issues (search for love and justice and acceptance and equality and identity, sexual orientation, corruption, addiction, reproductive rights) but in a manner that engages the reader with both heart-warming and heart-breaking episodes. 

It’s been five years since I read The Very Marrow of Our Bones, but I may have to re-read it.  I remember that there’s a character named Aloysius McFee in that novel.  Could he be the same Aloysius McFee from this novel?  I will certainly be recommending Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue and then suggesting that readers who have not already done so might want to read The Very Marrow of Our Bones afterwards.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of ONE by Eve Smith

4 Stars

This speculative thriller, set in the near future, is narrated by 25-year-old Kai Houghton.  As a “baby reaper” working for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning in the U.K., her job is to enforce the one-child policy enacted by the government.

Kai wholeheartedly believes in the policy and is dedicated to her job until she learns that she has an illegal sister.  To protect her parents from severe penalties for breaking the law, she secretly investigates, hoping no one will learn the truth.  Her investigation leads her to Senka who tries to convince her that the government has perpetrated a series of crimes.  Kai is left uncertain as to whom she can believe and trust. 

The reader’s first impression of Kai is not a positive one.  She is totally committed to the one-child policy which she believes was instated because of dwindling resources due to unchecked climate change.  She carries out her duties in a zealous manner and seems to have little compassion.  When her beliefs are challenged, she is skeptical at first and requires proof of allegations.  She has to fight her indoctrination; Senka tells her, “’It’s hard for you to recognize deceit, because it’s all you’ve ever known.’”  But some shocking revelations and seeing evidence for herself gradually change her so she is more accepting and compassionate.  I appreciated that, in keeping with the criteria for a convincing character change, Kai has sufficient motivation to question:  her change is gradual.

Good speculative fiction is solidly based in fact and that is certainly the case with this novel.  Much of what happens has already happened.  As I write this review, forest fires rage across Canada, and different parts of the world have experienced other climate change disasters like floods and famine.  One-child policies were adopted by China in the past.  Perusal of a newspaper will reveal references to fake news and state-sponsored propaganda, demonization of immigrants, mistreatment of illegal migrants, disparity between rich and poor, increasingly totalitarian governments, and women losing autonomy over their bodies – all of which are mentioned in the novel.  A major discovery towards the end of the novel made me think of discoveries made in Canada in recent years. 

I read this novel in just a couple of sittings.  There is lots of suspense.  Because there are quotas for energy use, food, and travel, people’s activities are constantly being monitored – think George Orwell’s 1984.  It is not improbable, therefore, that her secret investigation will be uncovered by superiors.  Will she be able to save her parents from a sentence that “’can be indefinite’”?  There are several surprise twists to keep the reader’s interest, and short chapters add to the novel’s fast pace.  Only one event, one involving Mpho, seems too much of a coincidence. 

Though the book is speculative fiction, it is disturbingly plausible.  It will not leave the reader unaffected. 

Review of RAGE THE NIGHT by Donna Morrissey (New Release)

 4 Stars

I’ve read and loved all of Donna Morrissey’s novels.  She is one of my favourite Canadian authors, and this, her latest book, only adds to my regard for her writing. 

It is 1914 in Newfoundland.  Twenty-year-old Roan is an orphan who has been raised and educated by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the renowned Newfoundland medical missionary.  A nurse’s deathbed confession has Roan discovering that his father may still be alive, so he sets out to discover the identity of that father and the truth behind his mother’s death.  He travels by dog sled from St. Anthony to Deer Lake and then takes a train to St. John’s.  Believing he has found his father, he follows him onto the SS Newfoundland, a ship heading to the sealing grounds for the spring hunt. 

I didn’t know about the history of the Newfoundland, one of the worse marine disasters in Newfoundland history, but as soon as Roan joins the sealers on the ship, I suspected there would be a tragedy.  I’ve read enough about the seal hunt to know of its dangers.  The conditions are not favourable as the Newfoundland keeps getting trapped in ice so the captain and the sealers are more and more desperate to find seals; the decision to have the men walk for hours to reach a herd just ramps up the suspense. 

The seal hunt is controversial, but it has been part of Newfoundland’s culture for generations.  Regardless of one’s position on the hunt, a reader will feel empathy for the sealers.  For them, the hunt means making some money to feed themselves and their families.  The living conditions on the ship are miserable; food is very basic and there’s not much of it.  Once the hunt begins, the dangers increase.  The men need to earn money and it is desperation that drives the men onto shifting ice. 

I love novels with a dynamic character and this one has Roan.  At the beginning, Roan loves solitude:  “Quiet.  He loved quiet.  Loved how it settled around him without shadow.”  He even tells a young woman he encounters that “We are best alone, Ila, we are best alone” and believes that “She will learn, as he has, not to fear aloneness.  She will learn that it is in solitude where one finds one’s courage.”  As a young boy, Roan was sent to a boarding school in Boston where he was an outcast because he was considered an orphan from the backwoods, but on the ship he is accepted by the men and bonds with them.  He learns that “our pathways through life are equally shaped by the others who sail with us” and realizes that he gathers courage “from living these past days among a brotherhood that breeds such courage out of misery that all things seem possible.”

Roan has other lessons to learn as well:  patience and humility.  The ship’s captain, for instance, is described as proud and one of the sealers says “’Men does strange things when they got that drivin ‘em.’”  Roan comes to recognize “his own naked pride” and acknowledges the presence of “his old pal vanity.”   Watching the sealers help and support each other, he becomes more compassionate and realizes the truth of Dr. Grenfell’s words that “What we give to others is the rent we pay for our room on this earth.”  Roan does uncover the truth of his birth, but it’s the other lessons that more profoundly affect his behaviour. 

Characterization in the novel is excellent.  Characters are flawed like real human beings:  keeping secrets, telling lies to themselves and others, and falling subject to misunderstandings.  Though there are few women, they are memorable.  Ila, though the same age as Roan, seems so much more mature, probably because of her life experiences.  But the most authentic for me are the sealers.  They speak in distinctive Newfoundland accents which I love, but it’s their supportive fellowship, resilience, and humour that stand out.  Even when miserable, they break out into song to bolster morale.  They watch out for and help each other.  They share equally what little they have, unlike captains who keep the best food for himself and unlike Roan who in the past succumbed to the “greed of hunger.”    

There is so much to recommend this novel:  a suspenseful plot, authentic characters, lots of local colour, lyrical descriptions, and thematic depth – all things I’ve found in all of Donna Morrissey’s novels.

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of eden by Jim Crace (New Release)

 4 Stars

This is a retelling of the Biblical Garden of Eden story.

After the departure of Adam and Eve, there are approximately 50 habitants in eden (always spelled lowercase).  They care for their orchards, fields, and vegetable gardens with the promise of a life free of want and death.  They are overseen by angels, described as large birds whose bodies are covered in blue feathers; they have no arms so must use their beaks and talons.

A woman named Tabi, one of the orchard workers, escapes eden for the outside world, leaving behind three individuals who miss her:  there’s Ebon, who worked beside Tabi in the orchard; Alum, an informer who reports every wrongdoing to the angels; and Jamin, an angel who flew too close to the tainted earth beyond eden’s walls and hurt one of his wings so has been given the lowliest of duties.  Ebon wonders whether he should risk leaving eden to find Tabi and bring her back.

                                                                                                                                                                        As portrayed in this novel, eden is not a paradise.  The habitants must work; the food they eat is produced because of their hard toil.  Their lives are totally regimented:  the ringing of bells dictates their daily routines.  Once a week they must observe a strict fast.  They live lives of “sublime uniformity” because “Order is the order of the day.”  There is no privacy; “no concealment or withdrawal remains a private matter.”  They work, eat, and pray together and sleep in a dormitory.  In return for moderate comfort and security, they are expected to strictly obey all the rules. 

The place made me think of a plantation or a work camp with slave labour.  Though their basic needs are met, the habitants have no autonomy; they are assigned work and have virtually no choice in how they live.  It is also made me think of North Korea, a police state where everyone is under surveillance at all times, conformity and cult-like obedience are demanded, and propaganda is used to portray the outside world, which they are not allowed to visit, as a chaotic, dangerous place. 

This version of eden is not sinless either.  Habitants are sometimes lazy and fake illness or injury to get out of work.  Sneaking food is also not unknown.  Alum uses physical violence to enforce and punish.  The angels too are not unblemished because power corrupts:  just as the “bodies of the gardeners have thickened and grown tough . . . and their hands . . . have grown calluses and cankers, so the angels can’t be blamed for hardening . . . [in face] of the never-ending weight of their impeccability.  Pomposity and pride are the commonest of their failings, along with spite.”

For Tabi, it is the eternal sameness and boredom of her protected life that are the problem; eden is “endless, sullen, constant, dull, sedate.”  She wants something more “tantalizing and extravagant than the everlasting days of this, the boredom and the certainty . . . everything repeated and familiar, the domesticity, the blameless life she is ordained to lead.”  She wonders how anyone can be untroubled and satisfied “when all the future offers him is repetitions of the past?”  She is “Bored by the drudgery of being richly blessed” and wants to go “where she is startled and surprised, a world that is both limitless and meaningful.”  In eden all is known:  “The future was the past.  Nothing was a mystery.  There were no stories to be told except the ones that preached obedience.” 

Though Tabi is absent for much of the narrative, her personality is fully developed.  She is a restless free spirit, described as the “garden’s loudest mouth” and “an agitated bird.”  Ebon depicts her as moody, as someone who “laughs too readily” and as someone who “seems to think it is her duty to oppose the masters and their ministry but not her duty to be dutiful.”  She is “not restrained or underfed in anything she does or says.”  She questions the sermons delivered by the angels and even the existence of the lord.  Even Ebon admits that she can become tiresome but also acknowledges that “she is easy to forgive and harder to forget.” 

The book can be read as a critique of religion which promises eternal life if rules are followed.  There is a hierarchy to angels, just as there is a hierarchy to the clergy of most organized religions.  The angels do little work; pompous and arrogant, they enforce rigid routines and rules and dispense propaganda and punishment.  They serve a lord who is never seen or heard.  Tabi wonders whether the habitants are there to work for the angels who are dependent on humans:  an angel’s role is “to be served and waited on, fed and groomed by humankind.  That’s why the lord has made us everlasting, free from death, because the angels need us so.  They can’t caress themselves.  Or build, or cook, or use a hoe, or scratch their backs, or make a barrow out of wood.  Or grow tomatoes, come to that.  An angel’s good for nothing, except for ringing bells.  And prayer.” 

The novel certainly provides questions for the reader to ponder, especially about the value of freedom and free will.  Is immortality without freedom of thought or action better than mortality with freedom of choice?  Is total security enough to provide happiness?  Can blind obedience ever be good? 

I recently read The Book of Eve by Carmen Boullosa (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/08/review-of-book-of-eve-by-carmen-boullosa.html), a feminist retelling of the Book of Genesis and it has similarities with eden.  Eve thinks of the Garden of Eden as bland and speaks of what she gained outside:  emotion, pleasure, knowledge.  Likewise, Tabi experiences “guilt, regret and shame, feelings she has not experienced in eden,” but she also sees joyfulness and “richer feasts outside.”  

I’ve read Harvest by Jim Crace and really liked it (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2015/11/review-of-harvest-by-jim-crace.html) and I certainly enjoyed eden.  I’m definitely going to check out his other novels as well.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HAPPINESS FALLS by Angie Kim (New Release)

 4 Stars

I loved Angie Kim’s first novel, Miracle Creek (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/05/review-of-miracle-creek-by-angie-kim.html), so looked forward to her sophomore offering.  I was not disappointed.

It is 2020 in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. in the midst of the Covid pandemic.  A man, Adam Parson, goes missing while on a walk with his 14-year-old son Eugene.  A distressed Eugene returns home with blood on his clothes and hands, but he cannot tell what happened; he cannot speak because of autism and Angelman’s syndrome.  The next 60 hours are detailed as the search for Adam continues.  Was Eugene a witness to what happened to his father or is he somehow responsible?  Did Adam commit suicide?  Was there an accident?  Was there foul play?  Or did he intentionally abandon his family? 

The narrator is Eugene’s older sister, 20-year-old Mia.  She has a unique personality.  Highly intelligent and hyperlexic, she is also over-analytical.  She analyzes all events and everyone’s motives.  As she openly admits, she tends to go off on tangents which will drive some readers to distraction.  Helpfully, she puts side notes in footnotes which she tells her reader to skip if, like her twin brother John, a reader finds them annoying.  I enjoyed the endnotes because they really capture her personality.  I loved her sarcasm and really appreciated her honest admission of having conflicted emotions about having a special needs sibling. 

The plot is intriguing.  I found myself trying to figure out what happened by being as analytical as Mia.  There is certainly sufficient suspense.  Some of Adam’s secrets are revealed to complicate the investigation and then some videos emerge which seem to point to Eugene’s direct involvement in his father’s disappearance.  The family must worry not only about their missing father/husband but also about Eugene’s being treated as a suspect.  Covid serves to further isolate the family, and pandemic protocols impact events. 

Part V of the novel is entitled “This is Not a Missing-Person Story” and that could serve as an apt subtitle for the entire book because it is so much more than just a mystery.  For instance, it discusses how verbal eloquence is considered an indicator of intelligence:  “we equate verbal skills, especially oral fluency, with intelligence.”  Because Eugene cannot speak, he is treated like a child half his age.  Mia also mentions not being able to speak Korean when her family moved to Seoul for a few years and how she was considered a bah-bo, an idiot. 

The book also examines the relationship between happiness and expectations and life experience.  Adam’s papers indicate a pre-occupation with what he called the happiness quotient.  He conducted experiments to determine if happiness can be increased by lowering a person’s expectations.  Also, does lowering expectations also decrease the emotional effects of tragedy?

One element that I didn’t particularly care for is the blatant foreshadowing.  There are frequent statements like “Looking back, I wish I hadn’t done what I did next” and “Knowing what I know now, I wonder what would have happened if” and “Thinking back to that moment, my hand on the doorknob of the hearing room, I wish I could yell at myself to stop” and “She would come to regret those words, of course” and “I overheard something that I wish I hadn’t, given what happened later that day.”  The overuse of such telegraphing becomes annoying.

Nonetheless, there is so much to recommend this book.  There are the quirky chapter titles like “Locke, Bach, and K-pop” and “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc” and “Pretty Fucking Far from Okay” and “A No to the NO.”  There’s the development of multi-dimensional, flawed characters who are so realistic.  Also realistic is the ending which may frustrate some readers but I think is perfectly appropriate.  Even character names are perfect:  because of her double nature, Detective Janus could not be more aptly named, and Anjeli is certainly a gift.  Besides being entertaining, the book is informative:  I learned a great deal about Angelman syndrome. 

I highly recommend this book:  interpretive literature at its best.

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.