If I could write half as beautifully as Janet Fitch, I would die the most beautiful girl in the world. Seriously, the whole book reads like a poem; soft and flowing and haunting.
Our heroine is Astrid, the daughter of a free-spirit writer, Ingrid. Ingrid influences Astrid with all the cunning and glitter of a spider's web. This hold is not easily broken, even as Ingrid is sent to prison and Astrid is thrust into the "system." We journey with Astrid from foster home to foster home. We lie with her when she has her first taste of male love. We want to hold her hand at her first taste of abuse. We shake our heads at her short bout with religion. We cry with her as she struggles with all the feelings of a motherless child.

We watch as with every heartache, Astrid learns to love her mother a little less. However, the ties that bind are strong, and the book has an over-all melancholic feel to it that will linger in your heart long after the last page is read. <3.