SHINE, SHINE, SHINE

Some books do shine, and this is one.  Lydia Netzer's imagination and wordsmithing took my breath away.  It is a family love story about a heroine with alopecia married to a mathematician whose robotic personality is matched with his genius in robotic technology and their autistic son Bubber, and how's this family of quirky personalities find the courage to be authentic. Netzer takes you on a journey that shifts back and forth from Burma to the suburbs of Virginia, to outer space, to rural Pennsylvania and back.  She challenges  your sense of normal on every level; grammatically, perceptually.  Relationships, politics, morals, ethics and expectations are are all re-examined. It made me want to shave my head, to live louder, bolder and at the same time live more quietly and love more purely.  It made me grieve for the the days lost to conformity for the sake of fitting in. It made me rethink perfect.  Perfect is not without flaws, but recognizing that the flaws themselves are part of the perfect order of things.  Shine, Shine, Shine is a bright star on my summer reading list!