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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
A child's preventable death at the center; some threat in the narrative
Language
Barely any
Minimal language
Sexual Content
Barely any
An adult relationship between a teacher and student referenced as a subplot
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Culpability and its ambiguity, loneliness as a way of being, the failure of adults to protect a child
What this book is about
Linda is fourteen, living with her unconventional parents on a Minnesota lake in near-isolation, the remnants of a failed commune. When a family moves into the house across the lake — a young mother, a traveling father, a four-year-old boy named Paul — Linda attaches herself to them and becomes their babysitter. Paul is sick. The parents believe prayer will heal him. Linda watches. Emily Fridlund's debut is a coldly precise examination of complicity, childhood loneliness, and the ways we fail to act when the cost of acting feels too high.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
a child's death from medical neglect
complicity as the novel's central question
religious belief versus medical care
Reader Verification
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