I admit, as other reviewers have pointed out, that there is a samey-ness to many of these stories: precocious adolescent narrators, Everglades/island settings, supernatural or magical elements… Also, like most collections, this one is not of uniform quality. Still, the best of these stories--including the pitch-perfect title story--are so spot on, so lyrical, so compelling, so very nearly flawless, that I can’t see a way to give the collection as a whole fewer than four stars. As a writer, though, I have to admit to being pissed off that Russell was only 25 when she published this book. (I assume it is a version of her MFA thesis.) C’mon, honey, you’re making the rest of us look bad.