My Real Children - Tapa blanda

Such a wise book, about sweetness in sorrow, without any sentiment... It's easy to write a sad book, but this one uplifts and sweetens even as it tears your heart to pieces. Astounding work, even by Walton's incredibly high standards. (Cory Doctorow)

My Real Children starts quietly, then suddenly takes you on two roller-coaster rides at once, swooping dizzily through a double panorama and ending in a sort of super Sophie's Choice. A daring tour de force. (Ursula K. Le Guin)

As an old woman, Patricia tells her story through the haze of deepening dementia - perhaps . . . The result is two period dramas for the price of one, told through the science fictional conceit of alternate realities. But it does a disservice to this powerful novel to focus overmuch on its structure or categorization . . . Rendered with Walton's usual power and beauty . . . The alternate-history elements grow stronger as the stories progress, yet it's this haunting character complexity that ultimately holds the reader captive to the tale. (New York Times)

My Real Children is the rarest sort of novel - one that transcends genre. It is a book that, one surmises, will be eagerly reread as the years pass. (Quill & Quire (starred review))

In My Real Children, there is a dizzying array of astonishments unfolding, a Chinese box of surprises. Once started, it is extraordinarily difficult to put this book down, even for dinner, even for bed. (Jane Yolen)

Lyrical and brilliant. Jo Walton takes "What If" to a new level. (Ellen Klages)

Breathtakingly good! I really didn't want it to end, but I had to keep turning pages to see how it came out. A novel for grown-ups, even ones who think they 'don't like science fiction. (Ellen Kushner)

A wonderfully absorbing book about how one woman's decision can change the course of history. The characters are very real, the plot as complex as origami, the theme timeless. I lost sleep reading it, and dreamed about it when I did sleep. (Delia Sherman)

My Real Children has as much in common with an Alice Munro story as it does with, say, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle . Good novels show us a character's destiny as an expression of who they fundamentally are. What most novels do only once, My Real Children does twice. (Lev Grossman Publishers Weekly)

In her greatest novel, George Eliot attributed the growing good of the world to the actions of ordinary people, to which Jo Walton responds in My Real Children, 'What if?' (Sherwood Smith)