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What I found particularly moving (in retrospect) was Cecilia's intense drive toward suicide and the way the rest of her sisters committed suicide as almost a tribute to her. If she hadn't succeeded with her beautiful and grotesque flight onto the fence post, her sisters never would have gone through with it. They didn't seem like the types to do it themselves, except maybe Lux (and her reasons would have been different). Most of the novel was dedicated to what I think was the preparation they each needed to go through with it for Cecilia. My first instinct was to call the whole novel an indulgent fantasy because who didn't have that ultimately selfish thought as a youngster? "They'll all be sorry when I'm dead..." But something about the way Cecilia's more inexplicable suicide drove the rest to pay tribute to her made it quite lovely. It was clear that Cecilia would have been the last person to want to kill herself just because it would make everyone sorry. She seemed very indifferent to her alienation from her town, as if it were deliberate. There is never any suggestion of a precise reason she does it, only that it isn't the same reason that one would initially suspect.
The movie was also entertaining, but a lot of the deeper meaning was lost (as is customary with movie versions of books).
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"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)
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