Winsome ... A delicious premise ... Knight writes with humor and generosity as we follow Pen’s frequently painful metamorphosis into womanhood. Her kind, comic eye sneaks into the novel in subtle, endearing ways ... Knight has crafted a tantalizing yet quietly touching debut about inheritance, emerging sexuality and what it truly means to come into one’s own.
This is a lively, funny book that reads easily, but there is also a satisfying heaviness of focus on ideas like love, partnership, attachments and choice ... It is to Knight’s credit as a writer that all of these so-pivotal points cohere with each other as harmonically as they do.
Another coming-of-age novel about commencing young adulthood could seem pedestrian, but Knight’s gorgeously intimate, cleverly insightful wordsmithing will certainly impress and entertain.
Though the cast is a bit too crowded, making the story hard to follow, Pen’s intelligence and charm carry the reader along. The result is a satisfying coming-of-age story.
