Such Good People

Even though it is fiction, I thought this book was very accuate.Annie seems to be your typical teenager,wrapped up in sex and rebellion.The parents are like most parents of today -refusing to put their foot down for fear they will lose her.Then like that in a freak accident she is gone.The rest of the book describing the familys grieving and adjustment to life after her death is really rich and truthful.

Though, at first, the book felt ponderous & slow-moving, I remembered from my own experience that grieving is like depression--one feels heavy, slowed, fatigued, as though weighted down or underwater. The author captures that feeling well in her narrative of a family grieving. For those going through (or who have gone through) a grief experience, this novel will feel very familiar. The author is skillful at creating events & descriptions that evoke an "aha" response of familiarity & recognition in the reader. My favorite authors can provide for me a sense of seeing myself in a character or a situation, a sense of identification. Ms. Hickman does this well in this sensitive novel.