We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler

I absolutely ADORED this book, and was relieved to find that my prior knowledge of it from reading several detailed reviews did not spoil it for me at all. I think that this was because, in addition to being brilliantly written, it took a subject that already fascinated me and explored it from a new perspective, subverting my expectations around issues of perceived capabilities, direction of influence, and family relationships, and considering the long-term implications of an unusual situation through well-realised characters and compellingly ambivalent relationships. One particular memory of how the narrator's sister used to "press her face and body into my back, match me step for step when we walked, as if we were a single person" resonated with me as it is something my own children do a lot at the moment. I can also thank the author for introducing me to the "uncanny valley" effect, which I found highly intriguing.