Alex’s Reviews > The Names > Status Update

"But you know, Maia, if you ever get to wanting to talk about her - how you remember her, like - then I'd want to hear. Although staying quiet... she's just as much in your heart that way too, of course."

Cian - oh, my heart. Love is expressed in so many different ways

"Cora thinks about it all the time. About Gordon turning eighteen. It's only eleven years away and she's lived like this far longer than that already. But she doesn't tell mother any of this."

"... like some kind of bag lady. Maia thinks about this and is shocked to realize how little separates them. Her mother lives in a warm house and is bought clothes to wear, but she has no more money or freedom than the woman who pushes a shopping trolley or scavenged treasures around town."

In each of these timelines, Maia has instinctively stepped up as a parent, a barrier, a protector

"He wishes he was somewhere else. He wishes he was someone else. But he is Gordon."

I'm obsessed with the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter - they tell so much before the words even can

I wonder if the environment and situation around her contribute to symptoms of postpartum depression? In the other narratives, she had a certain strength to her that seemed to empower her as a mother, where in Gordon's timeline she has such a disdain for him.

The way she is described as almost detached from her body and the situation, yet can still act on her motherly instinct to protect and run is incredible and so engrossing.

"Cora wants to say it matters because sometimes big men feel small inside. Because some people- like Gordon's father -travel through life believing themselves so far beyond improvement, they come to think their children, and their children's children, should all be made in their name. Because sometimes their need to please previous generations is greater than their need to love the future ones."

"Maia's eyes flit about, their town suddenly a spot-the-difference puzzle."