This book comes to me at a time when I feel, that like Eliza, my family is falling apart. Not so much from what is said, but more from what is not said. The family was very dysfunctional, but it was a result of their lack of communication, and mostly from the parents' bizarre upbringings. In Saul's case, his father's rejection of religion, and very much self, as anyone who is Jewish knows, that it is far more a culture than religion. In fact, never going to a temple myself, and my father being Jewish, I considered myself "half-Jewish" for most of my childhood until I realized the absurdity of that assertion. Saul was so set upon finding the perfect family, that when things should have been said and done, he failed to do so, increasing the separation between the family members. The family existed in the same house, but couldn't be further apart. Yet they shared so much...that desperate search for acceptance, consumed all of them to a point that they failed to see that it could have been found with each other and didn't require an amazing transcendental experience to occur. I enjoyed the book mostly because of the desperation of Saul to formulate the family he wanted with the misfits and mentally insane he had to work with. He loved his family so much, but he just didn't seem to be able to give his love to all of the members at the same time. I felt for him, a character who loves people but is continually rejected. The experience Eliza had at the end of the novel, my show more medical knowledge chalks to a seizure, perhaps brought on by stress of the situation. Though it may have been akin to an experience with God, that many people have claimed to have. I believe after such an experience, Eliza may have realized that all the previous things, such as spelling bees, have come to pass and are inconsequential, much like her brothers realization in maya, the world of illusion and material world. Thus, she throws the spelling bee. We are given a lot of clues to this end result. She believed that her study sessions had caused her brothers separation, as well as her mothers refusal to see anyone in the hospital. She reveals her worry when her father and her were washing dishes. Overall a great book. Difficult to love the characters and painful at times to watch the family's continuous separation, but a theme most can relate to...not being able to communicate with those you love out of fear, not realizing that words may be as powerful to heal as to hurt. show less