I've loved E. Lily Yu's short stories for years now, delighting in each treasure she published.  When I heard her debut novel was coming out, I was delighted.  Her prose is rich but not ornate.  While it's true that you'll hear "haunting" and "heartbreaking" and "beautiful" about this book from so many sources, it's so much more than that.  Told from the perspective of Firuzeh, a young girl fleeing with her family from Afghanistan, and interlaced with chapters from perspectives outside the family, perspectives from people who have a disturbing amount of control over the fate of the family, perspectives that read their own family's histories and traumas onto Firuzeh's or their own prejudices, its very structure made me ask "what narratives am I projecting onto those around me?"