A stranger high on PCP crashes a family gathering, brandishing a machete. Dad's heart gives out while fending off the intruder, who then hacks his way into the bedroom where 15-year-old Paulie is hiding. A scene from a lurid horror novel? Nope. No one dies, for one thing. The author is interested in what happens after such a traumatic experience, how "the knots of people someone decided to unravel" knit themselves together again.

The story of a home invasion told through the youngest children in a family. ( )

A drug crazed man breaks into Mimi’s home- she is with her parents and younger siblings after her marriage has ended. As the father attempts to kept the knife wielding man at bay, the three women barricade themselves in an upstairs bedroom, until the man begins tearing the door apart. In the months after the attack, Splintering tells the story of what has happened to the family in poems alternating perspective between the younger sister and brother.

Quote: “The receptionist isn’t permitted to give out student room numbers. And anyway, she doesn’t have a listing for a Mister Evan Filthy Hippie.â€?

I didn’t expect to like this book, but it grew on me as I read further (although I enjoyed the brother’s story more than the sister’s). An interesting look at how one event comes to define and shape a family in more ways that even they could have thought possible. ( )