Katie Bayerl

DNF around halfway through because I read the first half over the summer and got bored, and just picked it up again and found myself just as bored and vaguely confused.

This book is so beautiful, as a story about using personal grief to illuminate the grief in others' lives. It's so compassionate and poignant, not to mention a damn good mystery. I couldn't put it down even though I had a paper to write.

Bayerl did a great job of paralleling the past and the present and the living and the dead. You learn about another culture (the Portuguese) and people’s religious beliefs in a natural, authentic way, one that promotes a desire to continue reading the book and to learn more background on the interplay of culture and religion as well.