All That's Bright and Gone by Eliza Nellums

We are introduced to 6 year old Aoife (Ee-fah) on a very bad and confusing day.  It appears that her mom has had a bit of a nervous breakdown on while driving Aoife to the mall. 

Fortunately she has her imaginary friend Teddy to make her feel safe while her mother stays in the hospital.  When the hospital calls her Uncle Donovan to stay with her, we get a look into the life of a child being raised by a mother with mental illness.  

As any young child, Aoife sees her life as perfectly normal.  She knows that there are things you just don’t talk about, she is accepting and imaginative and has an overwhelming desire to just be good.

Aoife feels that if she could just stop talking to Teddy out loud and if she could just find a way to help her mother deal with the loss of her older brother Theo, her life can return to “normal”.  Luckily Aoife has a neighbor named Hannah who is not only older (8!) but knows just how to solve a mystery.

Aoife is charming, she is imaginative and thoughtful.  The way the family history is told and pulled back layer by layer helps the reader to draw the curtain back on a family full of love and heartache.

I found some of the antics that Aoife gets up to a little hard to believe of a six year old but her age is important the telling of the family tale. 

This was a sweet and fast read that solves the mystery surrounding how and why Theo had to go away, how a family falls apart and comes back together and all the missteps along the way.