You can't choose your family, but they make choices for you.

'Wise, provocative and wildly endearing' Guardian 'Readably juicy and surreptitiously smart' Barbara Kingsolver THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER A Meghan Markle Book Recommendation Rosemary doesn't talk much, and about certain things she's silent. She had a sister, Fern, her whirlwind other half, who vanished from her life in circumstances she wishes she could forget. And it's been ten years since she last saw her beloved older brother Lowell. Now at college, Rosemary starts to see she can't go forward without going back to the time when aged five, she was sent away from home to her grandparents and returned to find Fern gone. It was Rosemary's parents who began all of the trouble - isn't it always? But, dear reader, exactly how they did it is a twist you'll have to discover for yourself.

"An original and spontaneous take on family that grabs you and doesn't let you go." - Elle

"Wise, provocative and wildly endearing ... achingly funny, deeply serious heart-breaker" - Guardian

"There have been many books written about sibling love and rivalry but few, I'm sure, can rend the heart and bore beneath the skin quite like this one. I began lightly sobbing at about page 77 and continued intermittently until the end when the final few pages prompted a full-on, nose-blowing blubfest ... prepare to be charmed and traumatised" - The Times

"Both one giant moral compass and a harrowing depiction of one family's tragic implosion, the prose zings on the pages" - Observer

"So readably juicy and surreptitiously smart ... this is a story of every family in which loss engraves relationships, truth is a soulful stalker and coming-of-age means facing down the mirror, recognizing the shape-shifting notion of self" - New York Times Book Review

"Wise, provocative and wildly endearing ... Many a novel has devoted itself to exploring variations of Larkin's lament about what mums and dads do to their kid. But if any other book has done it as exhilaratingly as the achingly funny, deeply serious heart-breaker that is Fowler's 10th novel, and made it ring true for the whole of mankind, I've yet to read it. This is a moral comedy to shout about from the rooftops" - Guardian

"The kind of book you'll want all your friends to read ... funny, surprising and heartbreaking" - Stylist

"So thought provoking that it could alter your future decisions as a consumer. I don't want to say much about the plot of the book ... except to compare it to Ann Patchett's State of Wonder in terms of weaving a larger story of radical, scientific experimentation into a very personal woman's narrative" - MSN

"The strength of Fowler's writing is its piercing evocation of the dynamics of family ... probing the intricacies of love and loss with brave humour" - Financial Times

"Explosive, provocative, and thoughtful, but still very funny. I'm so glad to have discovered the author." - Mail on Sunday

"Holds a mirror up to reflect what we're really made of" - Daily Telegraph

"A comic novel that wrestles seriously with serious moral questions ... Fowler knows how to make her story funny and sad and disturbing and revelatory by erecting a space in which her reader is allowed to feel all of that for herself" - Salon

"Rosemary's voice is achingly memorable, and Fowler's intelligent discourse on science vs. compassion reshapes the traditional family novel into something more universally relevant... This brave, bold, shattering novel reminds us what it means to be human, in the best and worst sense" - Miami Herald

"Hinges upon Rosemary's sharp voice, which at its best includes funny, self-aware asides such as an early reference to a character at a holiday dinner where she flippantly advises the reader, "Don't get attached to him; he's not really part of this story"" - LA Times

"Halfway through Karen Joy Fowler's enthralling novel "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves," I was sort of beside myself, too, with that electric thrill of discovering a great book. I wanted to stay up all night to finish it, but I also wanted to stop and call all my book-loving friends immediately and blurt, "You have to read this book!"" - Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Fascinating, moving, and beautifully written, but also it ripples with humor ... Layered with a huge moral compass and enormous humanity, this portrait of a family will touch and delight every human" - Boston Globe

"[A]n unsettling, emotionally complex story that plumbs the mystery of our strange relationship with the animal kingdom - relatives included" - Washington Post

"A profound, moving and enchanting look at a very complex family." - Irish Times

"An astonishing achievement. Giant-stepping back and forth through the life of its put-upon narrator, Rosemary Cooke, the youngest of three siblings, the reader is treated to a wild ride of tragic hilarity, but one which only ever serves to heighten its beautiful, heartbreaking core... a genuinely stunning novel - certainly one of the year's finest." - Irish Examiner

"With all the pace of a thriller and the emotional pull of a romantic novel, this masterful work is intelligently written and will reel you in, hook, line and sinker." - The Lady

"My favourite book this year." - Irish Independent

"Karen Joy Fowler is a very fine novelist indeed." - TLS

"The most impressively original book I've read this year." - Irish Times

"Dazzling ... shattering" - Daily Telegraph