My life has shocked me. One of the shocks has been sadness; death and other instances of impossibility. But the greater shock has been joy. I feel the hard flint of joy within my chest, the strength of it. It has stunned me with its refusal to be repressed.

A life is made up of many shocks - the shock of birth, of death; the shock of love, of happiness; the shock of car crashes and finding yourself in a teenage body; the shock of surviving each of these shocks, and of what might bloom in their wake.

In this incredibly beautiful book, Anna Beecher tells the story of her life through the shocks she has experienced.