This book was incredible. I don't know if I've ever been so attached to characters, and so interested in how they think, and thought so hard about life and choices and marriage and relationships as seen through their eyes. Nor have I ever been so shocked by a plot twist. After finishing this I could hardly sleep. And it's a true story -- an imagined version, but it all really happened. Holy s***. 
 Too many favorite quotes to copy -- they are in my Kindle highlights. A few: 
 "How old are you here?" "Twelve." "Such pluck for a girl so young." "Oh, I was at just the right age then, I think. Smarter than I ever was before or since. There were no grays. I worshipped my father. I loved my dog. I adored reading." 
 After breakfast there would be baths, and games, and dinner to think about later. It would give shape to the day. So many days had been shapeless lately. 
 Rows of Illinois corn fanned out from the horizon like green spokes in a wheel that kept turning. 
 Yet women are part of the problem. We plan dinner parties and make flowers out of crepe paper. Too many of us make small lives for ourselves. 
 "To experience such love is to feel oneself doubled. Such feeling liberates and deepens the personality, inspires us to noble deeds and works of genius. When this great love happens--and it is but once in a lifetime--it has a higher right than all other feelings. The perfect love establishes its own right in a life." 
 People who live only for their children make bad company for them. 
 "Forgive my bluntness, but leaving a boring man for a stimulating one is only interesting for a while. In time, you are back where you started--still wanting. Better to find your own backbone, the strong thing in you. Clearly, you are educated. What work are you drawn to?" 
 Above the organ, an embroidered hanging read, DILIGENCE IS THE MOTHER OF GOOD LUCK.