"She is so much in your face that it is at first difficult to scope what this first novel’s heroine is up to; she is so brash and self-confident, but no, now she is spiteful, but no, indifferent. Crazed, maybe. All that, and damaged. Honest. Able. And here to tell you about it. In doing so, the author has handed us a clear and unique view of how one might have experienced directly and viscerally the major issues of the times, through her interaction with a small group of individuals with whom she is entangled but from whom she is alienated by her passion and her pain. Throughout this rollicking romp, she is smart, and making do with what she has, which is an overabundance of wit, cunning, guile and conscience, packed into a dervish of a girl who means to get her way, get outta town and figure out what she’s doing in this world. What is she good for, and what should she be doing about it? And, by the way, what’s all the big to-do about sex, anyway? In some worlds it’s currency, in others a tool. The main thing is to make sure you are the one who says what happens, and when and to whom. Sex is useful in leading the order of play, so long as you make sure you’re the one doing the leading, and that you’re not being led. She’s a tough cookie, and she’ll need to be as she charges headlong into the changing landscape of the 1960’s in small town middle America. This chronicle of a young girl’s coming of age and into her wisdom is a masterpiece of a character’s evolution through experience and insights into an adult, shown through both the people of the time and the circumstances that formed them; led them through war at home and overseas into a maturity they never expected to find. With a skill surpassing what one might expect from a first-book novelist, Tomms guides us through the labyrinthine twists and turns of one person traversing those changing times with a deft appreciation of personalities and a sweet degree of patience for those whom life is tossing about like a large unwieldy dryer load. Never feeling staged, it’s a tale that rings true to those of us old enough to have been witness to that ever changing landscape, in those pivotal times. For those younger ones who wonder about the events and circumstances that shaped their parents and grandparents’ world view, this is an open window. And for the rest of us, it’s a darned good read, and a remarkable telling."