Small and beautiful and odd — I enjoyed Small Things Like These in late 2023 on audio (that one was narrated beautifully by Aidan Kelly; this one was equally well done by Aoife McMahon); and downloaded Foster then, too, and finally got to it this week.

Keegan has such a delicate, understated touch — I’m not sure why I’ve gotten into listening to her books, since I usually lean with my audio reading toward genre fiction and occasional nonfiction; this is much more literary (NO shade to the genre fiction I love on audio!) and lives in all the unsaid, quiet moments, the space between words, the intimacy and simplicity of the language. I think for my next Keegan I will for sure try out a physical copy just to see what that’s like since these audio books both worked well for me but left me a bit surprised and flustered at the endings — not in terms of plot (these are such quiet books, almost plotless, which I actually love!) but in terms of pacing. My suspicion is that these endings, which feel abrupt and sort of float away without comment, might for me hit less suddenly if I could read them a couple of times and really see and be with them.

Overall this one was beautiful — I think I liked it more than Small Things Like These, if only since it’s less devastating and heavy. I appreciate how both Keegan and her characters can observe complicated or conflicting things and let them be at odds: how they can hold multiple things as true at once. This book had such sadness and such tenderness for me but without saying any of that outright — pretty unusual and fetching, I thought.