Helpful Score: 1
I ordered this book just because of the title and found it enjoyable. It is a coming of age book with a twist..odd things like naked winged men and sponges that take on the smell of the nearest person's motives or emotions. As Sarah grows from her teen years to womanhood, she is constantly trying to make sense of her life as it is shaped by her unstable best friend, her boyfriends and finally her husband and baby. There's humor and symbolism and philosophy, but it's light and fast moving, not heavy. Interesting book, I think it would especially appeal to the college age and early 20's reader.
This was an interesting (but extremely odd!) book. Not sci-fi or really even fantasy, but it had the feel of Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle In Time". I often felt like something was going on that I didn't understand. The last chapter was kind of different, though, and by far the best part of the book.
From Library Journal
This novel portrays the ebb and flow of the imaginary and real worlds in the life of a contemporary woman named Sarah. In a series of nine chapters, we witness Sarah's initiation into the new and often unmerciful world of adolescence, early adulthood, and motherhood. A handful of truly unique characters and unexpected experiences, wild and magical, draws Sarah to a final acceptance of her own personal world, a world sometimes humorous and at other times genuinely hearbreaking but in its depiction always real. A quick-paced first novel that intermingles the imaginary and real worlds in an unobtrusive yet fervent style. Several chapters have appeared in literary journals. The first chapter has been selected for O. Henry Prize Stories, 1992 . Recommended for all libraries.
This novel portrays the ebb and flow of the imaginary and real worlds in the life of a contemporary woman named Sarah. In a series of nine chapters, we witness Sarah's initiation into the new and often unmerciful world of adolescence, early adulthood, and motherhood. A handful of truly unique characters and unexpected experiences, wild and magical, draws Sarah to a final acceptance of her own personal world, a world sometimes humorous and at other times genuinely hearbreaking but in its depiction always real. A quick-paced first novel that intermingles the imaginary and real worlds in an unobtrusive yet fervent style. Several chapters have appeared in literary journals. The first chapter has been selected for O. Henry Prize Stories, 1992 . Recommended for all libraries.
