Please note this is a 4.5.

"We're going to bed tonight early, Esther," I say to myself as I open my ARC of this book before I go to bed. "Just going to read about 50 pages to get off to sleep and I'll be done."

This was a lie.

It is not a frequent lie I tell myself, but it's not often that I enjoy a book as much as I enjoyed this one. A sweeping story examining the power of family, love, and the way that a life can be broken and rewoven, there is so much here to put together and take in. The overarching love story, of both Cyrus and Tara and Tara to herself, is wonderful. The themes of domestic violence and the pervasiveness of PTSD are really important themes, and I loved the relationship that Tara finds with her eventual friends even in the strange world of America.

I am so glad that the book ended the way it did- there was so much beauty in here, and I really, really wanted a happy ending. I think my heart would have shattered if the book had ended any other way, but this book left me feeling full. And I won't even begrudge it keeping me up until 2 in the morning to finish it off.