The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry

Wow. This is a really cool book. The blurb says that it's somewhere between The Memory Keeper's Daughter and The Sixth Sense. I haven't seen either of those but from what I've heard from other people the description is pretty accurate. This book is not fantasy. It's about Towner Whitney, whose family is described as being "five generations of crazy".

For the most part, the book is written from Towner's point of view, but there are other perspectives in there as well. Now I'm sure if you've read some of my other reviews you'll know that I hate perspective-jumping because it gets all confusing for the reader. However Barry has written such a tightly-woven story (excuse the pun) that the other perspectives clarify rather than obscure the plot-line.

The end of the book was quite startling and made me realise the importance of some of the earlier minor events. This prompted me to read the book again in a new light.

Be aware, this is not really light reading as it deals with rape, psychosis and other forms of physical and mental abuse.