Just … wow!

There are many reasons you’ll love THE WHOLE WORLD.

Great sentences, for example. Like this one: “We kissed a kiss like we hadn’t since we were pissed on cheap wine and empty stomachs.”

And sensuous details, such as: “Clicking heels against the wood floor, a vaporous smell of drink. I clambered out from under the smooth sheet and itchy blanket to fling myself at the woman who’d just walked in the door.”

And truths: “Books and privacy and time are a heady mix.”

In fact, it’s truth that drives the earnest characters in THE WHOLE WORLD. They seek the truth about the past, the present, and relationships. And those searches send them — and the reader — spiraling into surprising secrets.

It’s a book of crisscrossing lives and unexpected danger. I found myself feverishly turning pages, needing to know how the narrators’ lives would intersect. As I read each narrative, I was rewarded with another piece of the puzzle. Only when I read the very last page — when I got all the pieces, snapped them together, and stepped back — did I realize what the puzzle shows. What a satisfying moment!

Reading this mystery is an atmospheric experience. The setting is so crucial, so vividly expressed, it’s almost a character itself. I strongly related to the themes of displacement and belonging, which Emily examines unflinchingly in her beautiful prose.

Please join me in congratulating Deb Emily on a revelation of a book. May it, and its successors, know much success!

~Alicia Bessette