"Grief was not a line carrying you infinitely further from loss. You never knew when you would be slingshot backward into its grip."

Seventeen-year-old Nadia's grief over her mother's suicide lulls her into making sloppy choices for herself. But when her dalliance with Luke, the preacher's son, results in pregnancy, she trades in the baby for her college-bound future without a second thought. The ripple of her abortion spreads throughout the years and permeates every relationship both Nadia and Luke have, both with others and with each other.

I love Bennett's writing. I could crawl inside her worlds and stay for much longer than the pages allotted to me. This book examines mothers from every angle: the motherless teenagers Nadia and Aubrey whose loneliness bonds them together, Nadia's belief that her unplanned existence caused her mother the misery that ultimately led to her death, Luke's pious mother who does not hesitate to procure her son's freedom from an unworthy girl, the chorus of church mothers who meddle and judge the comings and goings of everyone else.

What Bennett achieved by peeling back the layers of choice and consequence, selfishness and desire, love and duty, yielded a profound result. Tackling not only religion but abortion in her first novel was a bold move and she executed it with sensitivity and comprehensiveness. Each point of view felt valid and represented. I would have liked a little more access to Nadia, for she was a cold and sad girl I struggled to bond with, even in her later years. But ultimately this was a stellar debut and I will be eagerly following Bennett's career.