When I picked up this book, I had no idea that the whole entire story would be told to us through notes left between the daughter and mother. I’d imagined it to be something along the lines of “Letters to a young poet” by Rilke, but no, this is what the title says. Little sticky notes and snippets of conversation that the reader threads along to make sense of the characters and the lives they lead.

That to me is as brilliantly creative as they come!

Someone was returning the book at the library and I picked it up off the pile. I wanted something light and it looked like it would be easy on the mind. I came home and searched for a review [I am so bad with being patient in books!] and found a couple. It was interesting, though one claimed it was a dumb book and one said it was sensitive and reflective. With an opinion so split, I had to find out find out for myself what it was all about.

It is 240 pages long, and each page has no more than a couple of lines. Imagine little notes you’d leave for each other, at work, at home, they aren’t long letters per se, but just small condensed messages we write to send the message across. That’s how the story is told to us. The conversations between mom and daughter, through the mundane chores, through breakups and relationships, through sadness, through parenting, respect, of comfort, and love and finally through strength as they face a crisis together.

This book can be read in two different ways. You can either finish it in one sitting, if you have an hour or two and are a fairly good reader, you’d be done with it. The second is the sensitive way. Where you read the pages and look through the lines, between the words, the feelings that seeps out through them and better yet try to identify yourself with either, or of the characters. Alice does a good job of keeping the language and style consistent. 16 year olds do talk the way she writes, in fact some of lines I could imagine them in my own tween’s voice.

There was a part that was personal. Well, it’s actually the whole basis of the book, but when it is first introduced, it was raw. To me. The discovery and the process of losing it. Goosebumps while reliving the cold metal plates.

But yes, it’s a nice book. As simple or as intense as you want it to be.