The Chronology of Water is astonishingly beautiful, and, as a writer, Yuknavitch is a force. Her writing hits you, hard. It rocks you. She knocked me over with passages so brilliant, so true, I had to reread them over and over until I could bear to let them go in order to move on to the next paragraph. The first chapter, where she writes about giving birth to her stillborn baby daughter, is so profoundly moving and visceral and honest, I was practically shaking after I read it. I looked up from the book wide-eyed, my voice gone mute, with nothing except the words “holy shit” scrolling through my mind on a loop. If I had to recommend one book that I’ve read in the last three years, it would be this one.