Read it in two gulps. Tense, touching, spare - he is a master of dread and resolution. The ending was a bit too pat and positive and obviously explained, but a very good novel. ( )

A twelve-year old Seattle girl (Caitlin), lives in borderline poverty, with her single mom (Sheri.) With her mother's long hours at a container shipping facility, Caitlin spends her afternoons wandering at the aquarium, learning and imagining. Her mother's life seems to be headed in a good direction with a new boyfriend, when deeply-buried family secrets ruin everything. Vann's illustrations were excellent, and I liked this book much better than the recently published My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, which had similar themes. I found Caitlin to be very sympathetic, quite mature, but believably so.

( )

This is a beautiful book -- just in appearance alone. It contains some colored ink, but also some beautiful color photographs of aquarium fish. They are metaphors for various aspects of 12-yr old Caitlin's life and she is mesmerized by their colors, shapes and functions. "Metamorphosis is the greatest beauty." (65) Caitlin is the only child of single mom, Sheri who has more baggage than a jumbo jet. Sheri has kept them afloat and safely away from her past by sheer force of will. However, Caitlin inadvertently disturbs that fragile balance and changes the fabric of her family forever. Told from Caitlin's view point, it rings true from the limited understanding she has of the adult issues around her -- that reminded me of Room by Emma Donaghue. "The worst part of childhood is not knowing that bad things pass. That time passes. A terrible moment in childhood hovers with a kind of eternity, unbearable." However, that's also my criticism -- Caitlin is a little too innocent for a 12 year old. 10 or 11 would've been more believable. ( )

Incredible! ( )

4.5 stars
This review can also be found on my blog.

Having added this to my TBR about a year ago and not remembering why, I checked this out of the library on a whim since I had some time to kill. I didn’t re-read the synopsis before jumping in and found myself being pulled through a curious story that in turn felt both unbelievably real and not real at all. In the simplest terms possible, this is the story of a girl named Caitlin who lives an unremarkable life with her single working mom. In actuality, nothing about this book is that simple.

I Google the street and see the crime rate at three times the national average, car theft almost six times higher. I think of my mother and the teachers at school letting me walk that route every day, and I’m filled with a rage that will never go away because it comes from some hollow vertigo unfinished. I feel dizzy with fear for my former self, and how can that be? I’m here now. I’m safe. I have a job. I’m thirty-two years old. I live in a better section of town. I should forgive and forget.

The story veers wildly between slice-of-life literary fiction and edge-of-your-seat drama. While I can see how this wouldn’t work for some, I was entranced by the characters and their stories. There is very little I can get into without spoilers, but there are some deeply, deeply horrifying moments squirreled away in here. And some deeply heartwarming ones as well. I really felt like I ran the gamut of emotions while reading this.

Lungfish can slow to one-sixtieth their normal metabolic rate, but this slows time, also. One night becomes sixty nights. This is the price for hiding. Just hold your breath for one minute and find out what a minute becomes.

Worth noting is also the fact that I hadn’t taken notice of the author’s gender and spent the entirety of this book thinking it had been written by a woman. While others have disagreed, I felt this was quite authentically written and was surprised by how carefully done some aspects were. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that the main character is in love with her (female) best friend and while there are some scenes that are sexual, they are portrayed in a way that I found quite tasteful and and innocent in nature.

Each thing that happens to us, each and every thing, it leaves some dent, and that dent will always be there. Each of us is a walking wreck.

Overall, I found myself deeply impacted by this book. Parts of it are truly harrowing, but the experience itself was worth it. I was quite impressed by Vann’s writing and really look forward to exploring more of his work. ( )