RaveSouthern Literary Review... an incredibly rewarding read ... its prose...is thick and intentional, each word carefully selected. It requires a slowing down of the reader to fully absorb ... Her details summon West Virginia brilliantly ... Van Eerden’s slow drip of information about the characters is equally impressive. At the beginning, readers know very little...but we want to know, almost desperately. Van Eerden feeds answers one at a time, in such a way that each morsel feels revelatory and obvious at once ... Van Eerden digs into cliches of Appalachian women to show their beauty and complexity ... this book has bodied forth both West Virginia and its characters. Frankie tells her reader, \'I write you to stay alive and…I write you, still, to become myself.\' Van Eerden has gifted us with a novel to read for the same reasons.
