More moving and wonderfully strange than Futernick's certainty at age 17 that she would never be happy is her effortless joy in being proven wrong. Her response has been to teach herself thankfulness.
Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. An enduring aspect of this story is the author's intimacy with the biology of kinship. She establishes the metaphorical heart at the center of a complex ecosystem in which love is water, light, and oxygen by weaving together the body and spirit so viscerally and so well that at times it will leave you wanting to forget where you end and someone else begins. Jennifer Futernick is most at home, and at her most eloquent, in noting the myriad ways that the heart extends its influence into every touch, look, thought, reply, every thing that matters.

"In this brave and unusual memoir, the author's spirit vibrates through these refreshing and open pages. She does not shy away from the joy and pain of ordinary life, but reveals in surprising, delicate detail the connections that make up 'the good life.'" Kate Abbe"