Wowie. What a devastatingly beautiful novel. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is an intimate portrait of life and the inevitability of death, told with refreshing and experiential narrative/prose. Also this is a DEBUT!!!!

Our main character is Lia, a mother, wife, author, illustrator and perfectly imperfect person battling breast cancer. As the story fluidly shifts between time and different narratives, the past, present, and future reveal much about the central themes of life and death … and it’s brilliant.

What I liked:
- Experiential story telling, shifting perspectives between the body/cancer and the third person narrator
- Creative and bold typeface
- The narrative from Lia’s cancer/body/memories is particularly impactful, and how this morphs into something different by the end
- Nuanced writing about memory and life's experiences
- Complicated and fully developed characters (especially Iris who is just a kid!)
- Commentary on: mother/daughter relationships, parenting, terminal illness and the impact that has on the person but also their family, faith (and the absence thereof), love, loss, sex, the economics of illness
- Loved all the references to art/Edward Hopper
- Just everything

What I didn’t like:
- Final pages are now water damaged from my tears

This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s an incredible story on it’s own, but more importantly it reminds readers how and why life is worth living. Bravo!