"She wanted to break. If she was a hundred pieces she wouldn't have to feel it."

Popisho is an enchanted island where goats meditate, butterflies are an intoxicant, and every citizen is born with a unique gift of magic. Xavier, the national chef who delivers seasonings to his food through his palms, is asked to prepare a wedding feast for the governor's daughter. On the day before the wedding, a day that lasts one day while also encompassing 94 years, we follow Xavier and many of the other lives and complexities that populate this vibrant and unique land.

Set your sense of disbelief on the shelf and immerse yourself in Ross's exquisite narrative! This book does not employ magical realism, it is magical realism. Fantasy is so closely linked to emotion and the owneness of human truth that any attempt to divide the three would be to cheapen the delicious, sensual, and altogether empowering insights Ross draws from the mundane and linear circumstance of regular (yours and mine) existence.

Her luscious descriptions of food had my mouth watering and tummy rumbling. The recounting of every woman in Popisho's pum pum falling out, and the hilarity--not to discount the contemplation and self-discovery that ensues as they try to correct the far-reaching ramifications of this magical spell--had me laughing myself silly. But more than anything, the way her direct yet beautiful prose cut straight to the heart of human struggle enraptured me. And she did all of this while managing to craft a few worthy male characters who weren't in need of being disparaged.

Halfway through the audiobook that I had borrowed from the library, I ordered the physical book, and then promptly upon finishing the audiobook started it over again. I really do not want to leave either Popisho or Ross's celebration of womanhood, grief, and the commonness of emotional survival when it is framed in such a magical way. Like at all. Ever.