St. Lucy's Home...

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

Reading this book is like dreaming. The stories are unsettling, at once completely realistic and not quite right.

Child protagonists grapple with growing up in a world where sisters disappear into the ocean after tobogganing in gigantic crab shells and grown-ups go to ice discos to grope each other in the anonymity of a blizzard.

In the title story, daughters of werewolves are sent to a finishing school to prepare them for human society. It was my favorite, I think, and I'm almost glad that it was saved for last. My second favorite might be "Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration," in which a child, whose father is a minotaur, recounts her family's trek westward in a covered wagon.

While Russell has a tendency to use SAT-words, this debut is unique and very readable.