How much do we owe our families -- and how much do we owe ourselves? These are the central questions at the core of the beautifully written All I Need To Get By. And after reading the book, it truly is striking to realize just how few contemporary novels recognize that most of us do feel that our families are more than merely a sum of its parts. These intangible links, so hard to break, form our characters and mould the way we interact with the world.To discuss the premise is to be drawn into revealing the plot, so let me keep it simple: this is a book that will stay with you long after you close the book. The characters feel so real, it is as though they are friends of friends. Their struggles are not easily-solved, movie-of-the-week difficulties, but honest-to-goodness real-world Gordian knots: drug use, co-dependency, mortality, learned helplessness, deep-down rage, and fear. And yet, out of this morass of human struggle, Crita's dogged determination to make her little corner of the world better transforms this novel ultimately into an uplifting story.In short, this is a novel well worth reading, on a topic that has long deserved serious consideration. Sophfronia Scott is an author well worth watching in the future.