Steeped in Science, Submersed in Story

An epic tale of one woman's life, from when she's 15 in 1984, in bits and pieces until she's 75. In many ways, she's a fairly normal if interesting woman: daughter, sister, lover/wife, mother, friend, author. But she also has fairly intense interactions with paranormal beings that define a major piece of her life. The first and last sections (ages 15 and 75) are written in Holly's point of view, and the sections in between are from other people's points of view that play some sort of role in her life and also in the paranormal plot. The last couple sections, by timeline necessity, are futuristic.

So there's a lot going on here, but I loved it. The characters, their voices, the writing, are all very well done. The paranormal stuff is okay -- I'm not normally into paranormal stuff, but it worked and didn't displace the story of Holly's life, but enhanced it. The storytelling is fairly unique. It's a series of very in-depth, detailed stories of short episodes in her life, and then several years are skipped over, then more detailed stories of a short episode. Some of the story telling details got to the point that they were over the top, but that lends an independence to the different narrators: they tell their own stories, not just how they interacted with Holly. Sometimes, I suppose, that's how memory works, with some vivid memories separated by a lot of blurriness.

Anyway, highly, highly recommended. I got this through the FirstReads program. I imagine they'll fix the typos, which were a little confusing since many were in the years/dates.