Community Reviews
This book was ok, but pretty dull and rather boring at times. Enough happened though to make me want to finish it.
I liked the premise and the sub-plots of this story, but the pacing was nearly tortuous. I skimmed a good third of the pages, just looking for things that were actually moving the story along.
Packer has keen understanding of human nature, and often, her writing really sings, and she can write lovely turns of phrase. But I don't need to know what Liz, one of the main characters, opens the refrigerator and takes out the jam and then spreads the jam on the bread and puts it on a plate in front her son. . . Or that her husband first opens the car door before getting in and buckling his seat belt. . . Of course, some level of details tells us about characters, how they do things, what matters to them, but there was way, way too much of this throughout.
Also, I was utterly bored by the character of Sarabeth, one of the main characters, who never really seemed to get her life together after the suicide of her mother when Sarabeth was a teenager. She picks the wrong (married) men to flirt with, and spends too much time looking out her window at the happy family who live next door. She is in fact deeply self-absorbed, but Packer doesn't help her move past that realization into anything that feels like action.
The most plausible and affecting sections of the book dealt with Lauren, the teenaged daughter of Liz and Brody, who falls into a deep depression and attempts to take her own life. Teen depression is a big problem (as is adult depression) and I found that how the author showed the impact of this trauma on everyone else in the family -- the anger, guilt, disconnection, fear -- to be the strongest aspects of the writing.
Otherwise, disappointing.
Packer has keen understanding of human nature, and often, her writing really sings, and she can write lovely turns of phrase. But I don't need to know what Liz, one of the main characters, opens the refrigerator and takes out the jam and then spreads the jam on the bread and puts it on a plate in front her son. . . Or that her husband first opens the car door before getting in and buckling his seat belt. . . Of course, some level of details tells us about characters, how they do things, what matters to them, but there was way, way too much of this throughout.
Also, I was utterly bored by the character of Sarabeth, one of the main characters, who never really seemed to get her life together after the suicide of her mother when Sarabeth was a teenager. She picks the wrong (married) men to flirt with, and spends too much time looking out her window at the happy family who live next door. She is in fact deeply self-absorbed, but Packer doesn't help her move past that realization into anything that feels like action.
The most plausible and affecting sections of the book dealt with Lauren, the teenaged daughter of Liz and Brody, who falls into a deep depression and attempts to take her own life. Teen depression is a big problem (as is adult depression) and I found that how the author showed the impact of this trauma on everyone else in the family -- the anger, guilt, disconnection, fear -- to be the strongest aspects of the writing.
Otherwise, disappointing.
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