Ratings2
Average rating4
Set in a working-class town on the Rhode Island coast, this is a crushing, beautifully written, and profoundly compelling novel about sisters, mothers, and daughters, and the terrible things love makes us do. Told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart: Angel, the murderer, Carol, her mother, and Birdy, the victim. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel's younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight. Author of "Henry, Himself."
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We know who the murderer is from the very first line of Ocean State, but finding out who did the murder is not the reason we keep reading. Instead, we read on to see the lives of the working-class in Rhode Island. It's a compelling portrait and we find we cannot look away, even when the people take us places we would prefer not to go.