“A gem of a book”

What a gem of a book this is—written in prose but read as poetry. Just stellar writing!
It's 1950s Chicago as Julia, the young daughter and narrator of this story, arrives with her family as immigrants from postwar Europe. Under Japha's deft hand, the mid-century vibe is captured in beautifully expressed aspects of that time and place, breathing life and realism into the story. We are drawn in.
But then the darkness . . . Julia's mother, Eve, is almost stealthily taken away from Julia as a secret disease progresses--Eve becoming a paler and paler version of her former self.
In the death’s long aftermath, questions will bubble up for Julia during quiet moments, as she tries to capture her mother’s fleeting essence. Maps help provide a passage through the landscape of trauma and loss—clues, perhaps, to the shrouded, annotated past and the ongoing, changing present.
This book gives space for the reader to sift through one's own thoughts and reflect upon them. A read that stays with you.

             --Lynn Vardakis on GoodReads.com (click here to read on GoodReads)