I guess you either love or hate this book. When I see the stacks and stacks ... - one sure sign of the new author's rite of passage - I marvel at the marketing power of the book industry. The book is deceiving, with its theme, concept, and moral/ethical stance. And what a marvelous premise. As a single mom of an 11-yr-old girl, I think about this sort of thing constantly. Unfortunately, what starts out so promising fizzles like a cheap firework snake. The heaven scenes were laughable (why all the forced "Heaven" geography?), the family dynamics played out like a worn out soap opera, and the ending was so contrived it almost made me hurl. (And that bathtub scene - shamelessly stolen from "Ghost.") Fortunately I only wasted an afternoon and a trip to the library (something told me not to spend any money on this one). Sebold: bag the fiction and stick to memoir.