Pick the Lock

This author is a genius, but I also hope they have a good therapist.

I know that the description reads like nonsense (which was exactly why I was excited to read it) but let me tell you: the book itself is even stranger. I was whispering 'what the heck' many times, even right up until the end. Pick the Lock primarily follows a young woman as she realizes that her mother is being abused, that she herself has contributed to that abuse in both overt and subtle ways, and that she is headed for the same fate. Through this is she able to realize that she and her brother are both also victims of her father, and start working with her mother and other loved ones to fix the horrible brokenness that surrounds her. But the author couldn't have just written that story, that, dear reader, would have been some terribly boring (probably adult) fiction. Instead she uses off-putting metaphors and magical realism to really send you into a spiral. God I loved it. Buckle in for story both complex and simple, very grown up and very rooted in childhood, heartbreaking and hopeful. So strange, and yet so familiar.