"The book is full of vivid characters (a librarian who collects overdue books in person) and strange, sad deaths. Lende is not one for looking back. She has a simple, chatty style most readers will find oddly comforting. Life does, in fact, go on." --Los Angeles Times
— Los Angeles Times
"Lende writes emotionally, but never sentimentally, giving us the best Alaska memoir of late, maybe the best ever." --Booklist, starred review
— Booklist
"Here is the real thing - good old-fashioned American values coming from small-town Alaska. In a cozy chatty voice, Heather Lende tells stories of life in Haines, Alaska . . . Accepting life and rejoicing in the world are her preferred modes of thinking and feeling. She quotes with approval from Emerson, 'the proper response to the world is applause.' " --Boston Globe
— Boston Globe
“Lende writes emotionally but never sentimentally, giving us the best Alaska memoir of late, maybe the best ever.” —Booklist (starred review)
"Lende has a knack for subtly illuminating the remarkable in the commonplace, the transcendence in tragedy . . . Her voice, which alternates between folksy and formal, playful and prayerful, entertaining and elegiac, is reminiscent of Garrison Keillor, Krista Tippett, Tom Bodett, Kathleen Norris and Anne Lamott.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“The book is full of vivid characters . . . [Lende] has a simple, chatty style most readers will find oddly comforting. Life does, in fact, go on.” —Los Angeles Times
“Here is the real thing — good old-fashioned American values coming from small-town Alaska.” —The Boston Globe
