This book is on a lot of "best of the year" lists, for good reason. While it reminds me a bit of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, in that it's narrated from the point of view of a 5 year old, it's an amazingly original work. It took me a while to get through the first 100 pages or so -- once I did, though, I pretty much read the rest of the book in one gulp.

It's a tough, emotional, book to read -- in a lot of ways, it's a sort of mother's analogue to McCarthy's The Road, in that it explores some fundamentals of the relationships between a mother and her son. The context is alternately sweet and horrifying, but a very smart book, in an original voice, and well worth the read.