When the reader experiences this book, there's a good chance there will be moments during the book when the book causes them so much real suffering that they might want to stop. Perhaps the passages about serious drug addiction, or maybe the passages about severe, suicidal depression—if nothing else, the five real human deaths should be enough to make any mindful reader cringe. But that's exactly the point. Ward is sharing with us her own season of suffering, death, and mourning, and whenever we feel like, "This book is a lot to handle," that's a reminder that Ward experienced it for real.
The story that captures the essence of the book best is the story about her own brother, killed in a car accident. The drunk driver ran from the accident, and when the police caught him, he was never charged with the brother's death. He got away with murder, and the family was left with nothing but pain, bitterness, and anger.
That is the essential plot of all of these death stories, because ultimately, it's a picture of the fate that awaits every living animal on the planet. Everyone dies. Although the injustice of that particular fate is enough to make the reader's blood boil, it's not more difficult to stomach than death itself.
Ultimately, this book constitutes a literary art called "Theodicy," which is the philosophical inquiry about the paradoxical nature of reality. On the one hand, Ward argues, life seems like it matters, especially in the innocence of youth. But, on the other hand, death makes a dilemma out of our lives, and we must ask ourselves why we are forced to live in an existence that leaves so much to be desired. Perhaps there is no answer to that question, but she asks it boldly, especially in the last chapters.
