friendsheyho's review
5.0
All of these stories worth together to make something greater than their parts: a book about how painful and difficult it can be to love, and how you hope for the chance to anyway. The settings span Louisiana bayous to Ohio call centers to the expanse of all time and space, and still each character remains grounded in their own journey. Wolf's Wake, which had a Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys feel to me in its celebration of the wavering line between life and death, was a standout, and so was Anatomist, the tale of an earthquake survivor building skeletons from a nearby cemetery overturned in the quake. I also thought that the last two stories, This is Where You Leave Me and The Center of Everything, did a great job of showing the thesis of the short story collection, as well as leaving the reader (or at least, this reader) with the aching sense of finality that means a truly excellent book.
More...