51�Թ�

Readers should always be suspicious of a narrator who insists they’re telling the truth, but I forgot this cardinal rule early in the novel, too distracted by the narrator’s other big claim: that they’re nothing like their missing father.

Halili and Reitsma look nothing like stereotypical church ladies, to put it mildly.

Certainly nothing like it has been seen since 1948, when the United States solidified its postwar leadership and banked global goodwill with the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt war-ravaged Europe, including former enemies.

They also advocated changing the formula for annual cost-of-living increases in benefits to one that lags behind the existing formula; they claimed that the result would be a “more accurate measure of inflation,” which was nothing like the truth.

It’s hard to forget the moment you meet your idol — and learn that she is both everything, and nothing, like you expect.