"Waiting" is amazing. I love the way Kipler writes--clear and visual and yet poetic. There's a truthfulness to the emotion, too, that I think is rare. You can really feel what the characters are feeling, and it doesn't feel forced or uncomfortable.

"Waiting" covers some pretty ambitious themes of death and dying. I usually find stories like this hard to read, but there's a real journey here; it's not just written to make readers sad. It's really thoughtful and beautiful.

And I am pretty picky about characterizing Scully. I think she is just perfect here--puzzling out the medical mystery and working with the kids (like in her sub-storyline in I Want To Believe (obviously written years after "Waiting")). I love her voice coming through in the story. Scully's inner voice is precise and poetic (see her journal entries), just the way Kipler writes her.