Like the cacti in the desert where she now currently resides, Fink learned to adapt to the environment around her as a child growing up with a mother suffering from depression, borderline personality disorder, and psychotic episodes. She was five when first remembers her mother going in to the hospital. For being sad, her father says.

Told through propulsive prose and bewitching tellings of haunted houses, witchcraft, and her mother’s fantastical tales, this memoir was difficult to set aside; haunting in its delivery.

Read if you enjoy memoirs about dysfunctional family dynamics (specifically mother-daughter relationships); mental illness; living with and overcoming—or at least attempting to overcome—childhood trauma; and the search for one’s own identity.

Thank you Gallery Books and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review! Available 08/06/2024