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Someone recommended that I read this book as a model for the scifi novel I am working on. It is a great example of effective "world-building." The futuristic world of inter-planetary travel is clear, but never over-explained, always leaving exciting work for the reader to do (you have to fill in the gaps and work with the writer in creating the scenes). For instance, it begins on a planet where gender is fluid.

This book is incredible. The author is a young writer now working on her first novel. This is a collection of short stories about life in the American southwest. Although the setting figures prominently in the stories, it is the interior lives of the young women that is always at the forefront. There are many coming of age stories that are told with bizarre twists. (A father's boa constrictor is killed by his son.)

This book just keeps getting better and better. I still don't understand why the review I read was so bad. The writing is so unique. It is told from the perspective of a middle-school girl who sees her parents' relationship crumbling while she learns dark secrets about adults' lying. It is also a class struggle between those in her family who left their "bad" neighborhoods for a "better" life, but remain unchanged.

This is really compelling. The narrator has now met her strange aunt, who hates her parents, and she is becoming more and more involved in the aunt's life,which is so different from her parents. Her parents have tried to shelter her from the working-class world that they came from, but everyone in her aunt's family accepts her and makes her feel more comfortable. What will happen to her relationship with her parents?

Ok, so this book is soooo good. I've never read anything like it. First of all, I was surprised because the reviews were so bad. One woman basically said the book had no structure and rambled. Not so! It is so finely constructed and deep! I've never read anything like this, except maybe Catcher in the Rye-it has the same perspective of a young person coming of age against the backdrop of adult conformity and lies.