A friend of mine recommended this book to me (which was written by her best friend) when I told her I was moving to Seattle. The author also lives in the Seattle area. I wasn’t able to finish it when she gave it to me because I had too much going on at the time. But we ended up reading it for book club last month and I am so glad I finally got to finish reading it.
This book is a collection of short stories. I haven’t read many short stories, so it was a little harder for me to get into it at first. Once I was able to get a hang of how short stories were written, I really enjoyed them. And thinking about the stories from the beginning after reading the whole book made those even better.
Her stories are so beautifully written and you get a feel for each of the characters. I was able to feel connected to each of the characters in a very short time with her stories. Each of the women in the book were so different and yet had an inkling of a common thread through her words. I was intrigued by how visual her words were and how in depth the stories were at only a handful of pages long.
The really exciting part for me is that we were able to get the author, Kirsten, to join us for book club so we could ask her questions and talk to her about the book. It was so fun to hear her thought process and her feelings on the characters. I love talking to authors about their books (or hearing authors talk about their books).
Kirsten wrote this book a number of years ago and wrote a second one (Swimming with Strangers) as well. She talked about a third book in the works as well! I am planning to read her second book and would love to read her third book one day, too. Kirsten, if you need more people to read advance copies…I’d love to be considered. 
If you love short stories, I recommend you read this. If you haven’t read many (or any) short stories, I recommend you read this. I think reading a variety of writing helps me be a better reader and also not become so stuck in one genre. This book is a little hard to get copies of (you won’t find it at your local library) because it was written a number of years ago. But if you want to read it, I would be happy to loan you my copy.
Happy reading, friends.
