I wish every book was this book.

Lillian is The Perfect Narrator. Ambitionless and just stuck, she doesn’t even particularly want the task she has set i front of her, but she’s so human and tender that her love of the kids and Madison make you love her (and also the kids). i love her, i am her in a lot of ways. in different circumstances i guess, but otherwise…

the only drawback of this book is that it lacks a little in subtlety. it doesn’t always suffer in those moments — sometimes it’s incredible to have a ten year old girl to burn down her childhood home, you know, to have the narrator to tell you exactly what she’s feeling in ways that seem like they should only exist inside a book, but also do make sense for the very internal, lonely, cerebral kind of character that Lillian is. in other places like, the lack of subtlety leads to choppy disjointed scenes. so.

anyway, i know it’s only june but this is certainly a contender for best book of the year.