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dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
How much does one’s name determine who you become? Can the meaning of one’s name provide a clandestine path for the life we live?
Cora is faced with these questions on the day everything changes. One choice. Perhaps, one of the only choices she has in her marriage. What will be the name of her son?
Only, Cora is unable to freely dream and imagine who her son may become because she and her nine year old daughter Maia, are enduring domestic violence. Cora’s greatest hope for Maia and her newborn son, are to live freely, become their own unique people, and shield them from any physical or physiological harm that their father’s terror and violence inflicts.
Cora, the core of the story, and her choice in 1987 engulfs the reader in three different outcomes/timelines spanning 35 years; as she names her child, Bear, Julian, and Gordon. An intricate spider web carefully constructed among characters will result in profound consequences for herself, her children, and her loved ones based on which name Cora writes on the birth certificate.
I want to immediately re-read this novel. A rarity. I want to slowly delight in making new connections and marvel in how Knapp constructed this novel, which left no detail unaccounted for or unimportant. I will cry, laugh, be filled with hope, witness love in many forms, and be left amazed all over again.
This book has crawled into my heart.
So far, the best fiction I’ve read in 2025.
Cora is faced with these questions on the day everything changes. One choice. Perhaps, one of the only choices she has in her marriage. What will be the name of her son?
Only, Cora is unable to freely dream and imagine who her son may become because she and her nine year old daughter Maia, are enduring domestic violence. Cora’s greatest hope for Maia and her newborn son, are to live freely, become their own unique people, and shield them from any physical or physiological harm that their father’s terror and violence inflicts.
Cora, the core of the story, and her choice in 1987 engulfs the reader in three different outcomes/timelines spanning 35 years; as she names her child, Bear, Julian, and Gordon. An intricate spider web carefully constructed among characters will result in profound consequences for herself, her children, and her loved ones based on which name Cora writes on the birth certificate.
I want to immediately re-read this novel. A rarity. I want to slowly delight in making new connections and marvel in how Knapp constructed this novel, which left no detail unaccounted for or unimportant. I will cry, laugh, be filled with hope, witness love in many forms, and be left amazed all over again.
This book has crawled into my heart.
So far, the best fiction I’ve read in 2025.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence