Wetherall has written a luminous memoir that no one who reads it will soon forget ... It’s an arresting, absorbing read as we come to know Tyler the child, the youngest in her family and, it would seem, the most attuned to the unspoken and unspeakable ... Through it all, as Tyler struggles to carry on with the business of growing up, she conveys her exceptional yet familiar experiences in language that makes the reader stop and savor, or simply chuckle. She is witty and eloquent on the passing of childhood, describing how games and toys lose their power ... As in any good coming-of-age story, our heroine has left family behind and begun to make her home in the wider world. Now that she has done so, we eagerly await the new stories she will tell.
This compelling memoir is her attempt to make sense of it all, and she does a beautiful job ... At first, this portrayal seemed overly rosy—but it is the view through Wetherall’s childish lens and we are along for her journey, slowly unraveling the truth as she does. The suspense she builds is brilliant ... Wetherall, who is now a young journalist in New York City, is capable of profound observations ... Her prose is graceful and inventive.
In fact, the most central rule to the author’s childhood was to say nothing at all about anything. As Wetherall grew into a self-destructive teenager, she demanded that the truth be revealed. Wonderfully suspenseful and an unexpected page-turner, this story of an immensely likable family under an incredible strain will stay with readers.
