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I’m left utterly breathless. What an immense story contained within a singular family. I don’t know if there’s a way to adequately prepare someone to go into this novel, but here I’ll do my best.

��You know what the heaviest thing in the world is, Betty?��

This book was the quiet before the storm, and then it was the storm itself. Tiffany McDaniel‘s writing is exquisite. There’s a way that authors-who-are-also-poets write that’s almost immediately identifiable. It felt like every other line contained something that I want to scribble down and store away for later. But as soon as I found myself falling into a rhythm, the song quickly shifted into a new movement, and I was thrown off the beat. As easily as she can sweep you away, McDaniel can yank you suddenly back into your body.

Betty follows the life of Betty Carpenter and her family as she grows up in the fictional town of Breathed, Ohio. Her father, Landon, is Cherokee and her mother, Alka is white. Every significant moment in their lives from the time the two of them meet until the final pages of the book is documented by their youngest daughter, Betty, as she learns about who she is and what her place is in the world. Most of these lessons are hard, made harder by the time and location she resides in. But they are also made easier by the fortifying nature of some of her family members and ancestors.

This is not a story of family drama but one of family trauma. It’s also the story of all the beautiful things that grow in the cracks between them. In the Carpenters, we watch as the scars of one generation are passed on to the next. It can be hard to reconcile when a person unloads that pain onto someone they’re supposed to love unconditionally. Can you forgive someone that’s tried to drag you down with them, if they thought it was the only way they could keep from drowning? Can any amount of understanding make it okay? It will never be okay.

Parts of this book were devastating. Other parts were enchanting. I don’t want to giveaway any plot, but I also don’t want someone to go in entirely blind. Give yourself the emotional space to fully immerse yourself in the story. There is grief and there is joy. There are storms and there is solace. There are beginnings and there are endings. We can’t choose what we inherit or from who, but we do have some say in what we do with it.


I wasn’t sure whether or not to include trigger warnings, as some may be considered spoilers, but I also didn’t want to make that choice for someone. Here I’ve hidden them in a spoiler tag, so the decision is up to you: (view spoiler)[ abortion, animal abuse, child abuse, death, homophobia, incest, racism, sexual violence, suicide (hide spoiler)]


*Thanks to Tiffany McDaniel, Knopf Doubleday Publishing & Netgalley for advance review copies!