It's funny to think I'm now shelving The Paper Palace as a "favorite" and an "unputdownable" because I almost DNF'd it, but carried on after reading some great reviews of it, and it was so worth it. Initially, it's hard to care for Elle. She just cheated on her nice guy British husband with her lifelong best friend while enjoying a summer at her family property in Cape Cod. How am I supposed to empathize with anything about this woman who risked her whole family for one stupid fling? Well, thank goodness I kept reading, because in the 50 years leading up to that moment and in the 24 hours following it (told in alternating timelines), I learned to empathize with Elle, and with Anna, and with Wallace, and with every damn character in this book. This was SO much more than it appeared on the surface and I am so glad I dove into it. It draws you in slowly, but once it has you, it shows no signs of letting go, and it was marvelously done.

Thank God for Wallace. Her character and personal history is what initially kept me reading. The atrocities she and the generation before and following her endure are heart-wrenching, but her tenacity and attitude continued to make me laugh even in some very heavy moments of the book. Miranda Cowley Heller does an amazing job of putting so much detail into this family history to make it real, and to make Elle and her motivations make sense. I was not prepared to become so invested in her story but I was wrong, so wrong, thankfully. I hurt for her. I rejoiced for her. I felt every feeling in the world reading about her story.

The descriptions of the cape and of the pond and the ocean and the fireworks and the air were gorgeous. The nuance with which the complexity of broken and repaired and rebroken family relationships were handled was astounding. It has heavy moments but still fit into my summer reading streak with its setting. I know I will not stop thinking about this book for a long time to come. It was truly excellent.