TBR, 2: Broken for You

Like manna from heaven come the padded envelopes from my mom in Seattle. What will be in this one? Today's bounty was a new (new to me) book, Stephanie Kallos' Broken for You. A debut novel, a Today book club pick, a book about an old woman with a brain tumor who takes in a broken-hearted thirty-something woman. All in all, it sounds just good enough and just Oprah-y enough to suit my current state. But the real clincher that sent it to the top of the pile is the epigraph from Guendolyn Pletscheef:

They're so much more than objects. They're living things, crafted and used by people like us. They reach out to us and through them we forge a link with the past.

Lovely in itself, but here's the thing: all my childhood, Mrs. Pletscheef was just the old lady down the street. I grew up a couple blocks from her. What could be more delicious than to read a fictional account that touches on the life of the rich old lady at the end of the block. While she wasn't exactly my Boo Radley (and I don't think this will be To Kill a Mockingbird), it's as close as I'll likely come.

It does make me rethink the old neighborhood. Surely something could be done with the family who were making money bottle-cutting. They had a paneled van with brown bottle animals glued on the top. Do you think that shows up in Kallos' book?