Aberrations by Penelope Przekop

Angel Duet has never been very good at relationships. Her mom died when she was a baby and she has never been able to really reach her father, Frank, through the wall of grief that he built up. Friendships were difficult to maintain. When you have Narcolepsy everything requires a huge effort and most days Angel is just not up to it. At twenty-one years old, Angel is attending college and living at home, trying to create a future for herself. Things become more difficult when her dad's girlfriend, Carla, moves in, upsetting the fragile balance that has existed for years between Angel and her dad.

When the novel opens it is spring and Angel is working two jobs. At the first job, a hospital, she is having an affair with a married doctor named Mac. He appeals to her because he understands her condition, accepts her as she is and fits into the fringes of her life. At the other job she meets Kimmy and Tim, who become the first real friends that she has ever had. They expose her to a seedy underground lifestyle that centers mostly on drugs and sex. But they stand by her in a way that she has never experienced before.

Angel's mother was a photographer. She took a whole series of pictures of clouds that resembled things from everyday life, a duck, a horse, a snake. Twenty two photos of clouds have hung on the wall for the last twenty years. When Carla arrives she takes them all down, meaning to re-frame them one by one. The loss of the photos jars Angel and leads her down a path of uncovering old secrets. Eventually she comes to realize how she has let the Narcolepsy control her life and finally learns that truth, in all of its forms, is the key to happiness.

You can read the first chapter of Aberrations here.

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