We Are Not Ourselves

I just finished Matthew Thomas's We Are Not Ourselves, and I loved it so much I want to turn back to the beginning and read it again. How can I leave these people? Eileen, who fought her way through life with everything she had, suffered more hardship than anyone deserves, and always yearned for more. Connell, who behaved as any teen boy would, pulling away from his parents and trying to turn into a man by being distant and aloof. And Ed, poor Ed, who was smart and strong and loving and saw his demise coming, probably from a long way off. They break my heart these people. And what can I say about an author who made these people come so alive for me that I honestly forgot they were just characters he made up. I felt a lifetime of emotions in these pages: joy, anticipation, pity, sorrow, love, frustration, anger, tenderness. And what I came away with at the end? It's all worth it. All of it.