In "Gift Unearned," Susan Ambrosino gives us a glimpse of the complications, hardships and triumphs of life. Her poems carefully explore many of life's turning points: from childhood to young adulthood, parenting, retirement, losing one's spouse, and old age. In her poems childhood is magic but can also be a wall. A young adult is wild like a monkey but also becomes beached. We all make choices, music sets us free, and trains carry us to places within ourselves. She talks about goals, college, resurrection, parties, war, getting drunk and backyard memories. Children can be comets, love is a problem, truth lies, misconceptions are everywhere and religion can be anything. Susan Ambrosino brings her readers the significance of the ordinary as well as the ecstatic. Her poems will inspire and entertain.