By a much talked-about young writer from Mexico-whose accolades include the Herralde Prize, the Ribera del Duero Prize, and inclusion in the Bogota 39-the novel of an unconventional childhood in the seventies, split between Mexico and Europe.

From a psychoanalyst’s couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood-in which she was born with a birth defect into a family intent on fixing it-having somehow survived the emotional havoc she went through. And survive she did, but not unscathed. This intimate narrative echoes the voice of the narrator’s younger self- a sharp, sensitive girl who is keen to life’s gifts and hardships.

With bare language and smart humor, both delicate and unafraid, the narrator strings a strand of touching moments together to create a portrait of an unconventional childhood that crushed her, scarred her, mended her, tore her apart, and ultimately made her whole.