This is a coming-of-age memoir, written from the perspective of Laura Murphy, the older of the two children of Marie and Kevin Murphy. Laura takes the reader along on an awkward journey of her pre and adolescent years as first, her parents separate and then, her mother is courted by and marries the parish priest.  Her father, meanwhile, runs off with the family furniture, abandons their dogs and bails on his financial responsibilities to the family.As the years go by, the kid’s constant babysitter, Grandma Mo, starts acting out in early stages of dementia and Laura, herself, is falsely diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Laura struggles to find her own path as the people around her spin out of control, weaving a web of mixed conceptions of what is normal and pure chaos. This memoir about betrayal, survival and family, written in a first person and quirky child narrator’s voice, toggles humor and pathos without sentimentalism.