I picked up this book for its title off a library shelf. It was a hardcover book with a pink dust jacket and images of sketched people in blue on a amusement park giant swing.
The contents of the book concern self removal at the least inconvenience to the schedule of other people's lives. It is apologetic and tells anecdotes from a small town childhood where the protagonist and her sister have to navigate a volatile household of parents constantly fighting. The reader learns of the family and people in this small town through the lens of scenes throughout the life of a twenty year old high school dropout with a job at a discount store. There are sweet gems of moments of joy, and honest moments of struggle to communicate just why the road has led to this irreversible, but ultimate conclusion to leave this mortal plane at such an early age.
The older sister of the suicidal young lady handled the trauma of waking on eggshells by trying to appease and make peace, avoiding triggers of conflict. This caused some strain as the younger sister is constantly blundering into triggers, setting off emotional bombs and being blamed for the mess of shrapnel in her wake.
The sisters are both shaped by this household, by their mutual love of their grandmother, who has been an anchor in their stormy waters, and their aunt who was an occasional lifeboat with one oar to try to have a temporary break from the unstable ship, but could only circle them back to where they started.
The older sister headed off to college, as an escape from the small town and it's gravity, leveraging her perfectionist path of coping skills and practice of navigating people's moods.
The book shifts gears both light and heavy with deftness and care. People are imperfect, and can let you down in disappointment from the dreams of how it could be if they cared to stop and listen.
I found this a fast read and tender in a broken spirit of things found too late, and held up like a kaleidoscope to try to make sense of a mundane and monotonous world.
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