"This is a really impressive debut poetry collection. The back copy promises "Nine houses, nine families, nine stories of children learning to live inside worlds that are crumbling around them," and Hall delivers it in memorable visual details, a structure that gives the feeling of scaffolding to hold the wispiness and weight of each poem, and a technical deftness that speaks to years of practicing poetic craft and combing over every small detail to make sure it all serves the poetry."

"Each poem is from the POV of a child in a dire family situation, and the short lines--sometimes as brief as one word--force the reader to slow down. Because everything moves to slowly for children, but tragedy is the worst. Everything lasts forever. Especially pain. To be immersed in their situation, to understand and empathize, we must experience it slowly. Words and lines are often repeated in threes, like so many fairy tales these kids would know, and so many spiritual and folklore stories. In threes, words become a comfort, and they can become a prayer (though in these poems, salvation through religion is presented as a false choice, more a part of the tragedy than a way out of it). When a word or phrase is repeated only twice, or four times, there's a dissonance, a feeling of discord."

"Ultimately, these children survive. This isn't a spoiler, as Hall tells us this herself in a note at the front of the book. Survival looks different in each situation, ending in destruction, acceptance, dissociation, resignation. The children still have to carry the weight of their ordeal, but this is where we leave them."

"I don't know if the author has any more poetry collections planned, but I would love to read whatever she chooses to publish. I know she has a YA fantasy novel out under a slightly different name, so I'll track that one down for next time. For now, I urge you to read A Gathering of Ash."