We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Karen Joy Fowler)

This is the story of a very unusual family, told from the point of view of the daughter of a research psychologist. The father works in the field of comparative cognition, looking at how the cognitive processes of humans differ from those of rats and other primates - right up my alley! He winds up involving his family directly in his research, though, with dire consequences for everyone concerned. The narrator moves into adulthood dealing with issues of guilt, anger, and fear as a result of the events of her early childhood. I'm dancing around the central events here, because they're not revealed until several chapters in and I don't want to spoil anything from the few folks who don't go in knowing what was happening. The story is gripping, heartbreaking and heartwarming, and manages to claw its way to as happy an ending as the various characters could have. I enjoyed it a lot.