I liked the way the prose was set out, as a stream of consciousness, sometimes with only a line or short paragraph on each page. I found the novel quite a claustrophobic read and very sad. It is naturally very one-sided as you stay in Johanna's head as she tries to build a picture of who her Mum really is, patching together fragments from the past and impressions from the present. There is a line from the book "but what if the challenge is to reconcile yourself with the unresolved?" - it's beautifully observed.