A spunky six-year-old obsessed with death upends the lives of four elderly relatives as they embark on an unforgettable road trip that reminds them to cherish the sometimes infuriating--but always beloved--people they call family.
Since surviving the car accident that claimed her parents' lives two years ago, six-year-old Adalia has developed an unusual fixation with death. After discovering her latest project--the very much alive family cat partially mummified in oil and towels--and uncovering a backyard cemetery of buried dolls, her grandmother Winnie reaches her breaking point.
Overwhelmed by her own unprocessed grief and Adalia's increasingly concerning behavior, Winnie convinces her husband and two elderly siblings that Adalia would be better off with her paternal grandparents. They load into a cramped, aging van and embark on what should be a straightforward journey that takes only two days, but quickly spirals into a madcap adventure that tests the very definition of family.
Their haphazard caravan grows to include a socially anxious traveler, a prickly hedgehog, a widow famous for her homemade tamales, and a three-legged rescue dog. As mechanical failures, wrong turns, and personality clashes accumulate, the group's patience wears thin. It takes an unexpected fender bender, Adalia's determined quest for the perfect banana milkshake, and a raw confrontation with both truth and faith to redirect their journey--both literal and metaphorical.
By the time they reach their destination, these four seniors discover that Adalia's peculiar approach to processing loss has transformed them all. Her unfiltered perspective has helped each confront their own grief, find courage to love despite the risk of pain, and recognize the value in their unconventional found family--three-legged dog and hedgehog included. Through Adalia's strange yet wonderful ways, they learn perhaps the most important lesson of all: there is no such thing as "normal" when it comes to family. Family is the people who love you, just as you are.
