She lived with her brother Lowell, mother, father, who is professor of behavioral psychology at Indiana University Bloomington, and a chimpanzee named Fern whom her parents have raised as a third child as part of a long-term scientific study.

[5] On the September/October 2013 issue of Bookmarks, reported on reviews from several publications with ratings for the novel out of five: Seattle Times gave it a five, Christian Science Monitor, Miami Herald, NY Times Book Review, NPR, and Washington Post gave it a four with a critical summary saying, "The chapters toward the end may feel somewhat muddled, but in this original, insightful work, that's a minor flaw".

"[7] Ron Charles, writing for The Washington Post, remarks that "Fowler manages to subsume any polemical motive within an unsettling, emotionally complex story.

"[9] In The Guardian, Liz Jenner wrote "Many a novel has devoted itself to exploring variations of Larkin's lament about what mums and dads do to their kids.

But if any other book has done it as exhilaratingly as the achingly funny, deeply serious heart-breaker that is Fowler's 10th novel, and made it ring true for the whole of mankind, I've yet to read it.