Lisa78 reviewed on 1/10/2009 + 25 more book reviews

Interesting book in that I'm not sure how I feel about it. Is it brilliant? Maybe. Is it half thought-out? Maybe. I had a hard time getting into it, but the curiosity about what happened to her face kept me going. That is not revealed and can't really even be guessed at until the very end. The author was one of the few I've read who successfully foreshadowed an event, but did not give it away by bits until you had pretty much put it all together before it was revealed. That's not to say that there's a huge surprise twist at the end. The story just takes a natural progression. Technically, she is a good writer, and she is obviously intelligent. I think, perhaps, she needs to be a bit more linear in her story-telling in order to be more accessible.

The description of the story is pretty accurate. Told simultaneously in current day and flashbacks, it is the story of a girl whose mother largely ignores her. She latches on to the mother of a neighboring family who belong to a very strict religious sect/cult and ends up going on a religious retreat with them to disasterous results. As an adult, she is researching the founder of the sect to try to make sense of where the beliefs came from and how it ended up changing her life.

It is not a light read, but it is not lengthy--about 230 pages. If you don't mind concentrating on a book, then you might enjoy it.

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