Let me start by saying a couple of things about this book:
1) I am from Nova Scotia, the province in which this book is set, although I am from a different area in which the book is mainly set.
2) I don’t read a lot of stories set in Nova Scotia (most of the time it happens by accident; I legitimately thought one book I picked up started in Halifax, West Yorkshire, only to be like, “Oh snap, it is Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we start. Neat!”)
3) Taking number two into account… This may be the most Nova Scotian book I have ever read. It contains the following passage:
“Do you want to walk up to Pizza Corner? Maybe get a donair?”
I nodded, and we turned to walk in silence back up towards Salter Street. Up by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, a busker played Blue Rodeo’s “Lost Together” on a guide and sang while a girl accompanied on a fiddle. Matt threw a loonie into the guy’s guitar case and pulled me close.
That will likely make little sense to non-Haligonians, but man, that hit me right in the nostalgia feels with its very specific references. The rest of the book didn’t evoke as much nostalgia for me (I’m an ’80s baby and was a toddler during most of the main action in the past), but that part really resonated. I do think some of the themes the book covers—grief, complicated family dynamics, generational trauma, and friendship—are universal. However, it was kind of neat to find elements in there that felt so specific to where I’m from.
Now, one more thing before I go further: the book invites you to visit the author’s website to see content warnings. I would recommend doing that. The book deals with some heavy topics, and I wasn’t expecting one of them because I didn’t check beforehand, which did catch me a bit off guard. That’s on me, though, not the book!
I had picked this book up a couple of times before this read, but kept putting it down because the plot summary on the book made me think; “this seems like a lot”. To try and sum it up in a way that is not quite so much, the book focuses on Kitten Love, born into a family that was “cursed” on both sides. Her mother’s side of the family is cursed with bad/tragic luck, which can be somewhat dodged with some ….creative… names. Hence our protagonist is called Kitten, and her mother is Queena, and her aunt is Bunny. On her father’s side, that part of the family has the males cursed with the “Love Heart”, so basically a history of heart-related issues that takes them out in their forties. The Love Heart curse strikes Kitten’s father, and that along with Queena having lost her younger sister Nerida in a drowning accident in the ’70s, puts Queena into a somewhat permanent tailspin. As a result of this, she goes about freezing the house she and her family live in, in time. The house becomes forever stuck in 1987. No updates are made, no changes to even the carpet in the bathroom, and even a TV Guide from 1987 is hanging around in the present day of the novel (early 2000s). There is also a bomb shelter, a ghost that puts out tarot cards to try and guide Kitten, mix tapes, and a bookstore.
(Since this book is steeped in 80’s nostalgia, just going to take a moment here to mention that the TV Guide being permanently from the 80s made me think of a line from one of my favourite 80’s movies; “Read the TV Guide, you don’t need a TV.”)
So there is all of the above, along with some quirky humour, and some magic, but at its heart, this book is about grief and grieving. A lot of grief, trauma and generational trauma, and how the characters cope (or don’t). The characters are for the most part flawed, and at times emotionally stunted. There were times when I was like “This does not feel realistic at all” in regards to the character’s reaction to certain things, and I’m still on the fence if this was humour that wasn’t landing for me, or a reflection of the lack of growth of the characters.
The end of the book wrapped up a bit too neatly for me, I did feel the ending was deserved (and okay full disclosure I did cry a bit. I’m in my feeling all the emotions era) but yes there was a sense of “okay here is a neat bow for everything.” To be fair I may have been reading too many thrillers lately and am use to the books I am reading having a more ambiguous ending.
For me, personally, I liked the light dusting of the supernatural in the book (but I mean, of course, I did, I love me some ghosts, and supernatural things) but it wasn’t a focus and I would feel comfortable recommending this book to people in my life who are not here fo