Night at the Fiestas: Stories

I loved this book. It's very rare for me to give 5 stars to any short story collection written by anyone but George Saunders, but Quade had me mesmerized with her characters. Each story is so real and layered that they beg to be read over and over again (which I may do when I have time later in the year). The female leads are kickass, broken, shy, brave, outspoken, good and bad mothers wrapped up into one and daughters of a similar grey area. Just gorgeous and really, really realistic. Mojave Rats stands out as my clear favorite, followed by Night at the Fiestas. I also adored Canute Commands the Tides because I had no idea of where it was going and I was glad to find out I can still be surprised. I'm not going to lie: I was scared to death of where Family Reunion was going. Enough. Sorry. It's an awesome read.