Toews is one of my favourite authors, but this may be my least favourite of her books, so far. It is humourous and clever, and it kept us entertained during our drive to Kelowna and halfway back, so I'm not saying it's a bad book. Far from it. I still gave it a 4-star rating. It's just that I didn't relate to the characters quite as much as I have in other books. That may be due to "reading" it in audio format, although the reader was excellent.

This book is set in Canada's smallest town--a distinction that is difficult to maintain, what with births, deaths, people moving away, and people moving in. If the population drops too low, it is no longer a town. If it is too high, the town will no longer be the smallest in the country. Keeping the title of Canada's smallest town is vitally important to its mayor, for reasons which I will not disclose, so as not to give away too much of the story. However, this precarious balance is threatened in numerous ways--sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes touching, and sometimes bordering on the macabre.