What an astonishing little book! It's a real slice of life, or slices of life, a series of meditations on voice, that moves through time somewhat linearly, organized around a set of journals the author's mother gave the author on her death. According to the author, journaling, and having children, were the two things Mormon women were expected to do. But the author doesn't have children, and her mother didn't journal--the journals she was given were all entirely blank. An author, of course, will have a lot of thoughts about shelves full of blank journals. She also explores other women in her family, particularly her Mimi and their connection through birds, in counter point to herself and her mother. It's profound without getting too philosophical, and guiding without being proscriptive. It's about mothers and daughters, and about birds, and about family we're born with and family we make, and about voice, and becoming, and being, and it's all woven together in such a way even the things that come a bit out of left field feel a natural part of the unusual narrative. I will be going back to this one.