Recommended: yep
for honestly 100% excellent characters, for a warmly imagined island community

Thoughts: 
Wow, I'm really surprised by how much I liked this. Even though it was a book I featured as when I was excited to read when it came out, I had some worries that it would be overly literary or serious and end up boring the crap out of me. None of that happened thankfully! 

The other concern I had was that it would be packed with quirky, two-dimensional eccentric characters who were nothing more than one feature played out for cheap laughs. Once again, none of that happened. In fact I would say the characters are the heart and soul of this whole story, and extremely well done. 

I cared about all of them, even the people I only got maybe a few pages or a story or two of brief exposition about. They were all part of each other's stories, and they all mattered which is impressive to do when you have like 30 people involved somehow in it. Even the dead people mattered! 

That's the book of why I ended up loving this, although the island life that we looked into was entrancing as well. It is certainly by no means painted as idyllic. There are a lot of problems highlighted, and a lot of characters expressing their frustrations or pains with living there whether by choice or not. It's pretty well rounded, but it made it a great place to have the story where the setting felt just as alive and integral. 

And of course, there is the light mystery of the plot that initially drives Charlotte to go there. While it was a thread that was followed, it was a bit meandering and allowed room for her to discover other things. I appreciated that it was acknowledged and worked on, but didn't bash me over the head with "who's my daddy" drama. The way it ended up being handled was not my favorite as it was pretty uncomfortable, but I guess ultimately I'm all right with where it ended up. 

When I finish this book I was sad because I genuinely just didn't want to leave. I think most things were wrapped up at a good way, and I could have ended the story there, but apparently this is a part of a series! I am delighted to hear that because I really want to go back! There is a lot more that could be discussed and discovered, although I think if it had to end at the end of this book it would have resolved enough to be okay. 

Overall, the characters are extremely well done in this and the setting is basically a character all on its own.