Day: May 28, 2021

I’m left with mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand it was a decent family drama that explored the secrets families keep from each other. It was also a good look at the many faces we wear: the front we put up for other people, what we share of ourselves with family members, and how each of those may differ from our true self.

It’s also a searing look at how lies can easily be compounded into untenable situations.

On the other hand, I found the characters to be weak and frankly unlikeable. Not weakly written, but their nature was weak.

Take Stella for example. The opening chapter hits hard. She’s celebrating her 40^th birthday with her husband, and then…wham! Her life changes on a dime. And then she kind of continues to take it, at least up to a point. I didn’t quite understand that.

I hated Rob from the beginning. He was arrogant, obnoxious, supercilious, and just an all-around jerk. I mean, beyond any other bad characters, this guy really took the cake. It made all of the scenes he was in unenjoyable because he was just…icky.

There were quite a few twists in the story, and I guessed them early on. That’s not to say that it is a boring story or a suspense type of plot. It was evenly paced, and the story rolled out naturally.

In fact, maybe that’s why I have mixed feelings. It’s a beautifully crafted, well-written story with characters who are just not appealing, relatable, or even likeable. Interesting.

Anyway, my favorite character, and the one I thought was the most developed, was Georgie. Not only was she a teenager with gravitas, but she handled the crazy adults who surrounded her with class.

I thought the second half of the book was smoother than the first. I guess in a way, that mirrors Stella’s experience. As I said before, well-written book with an interesting plot but characters, who, for the most part, did nothing for me.

I would still recommend it, because other readers may find themselves in Stella or Molly (or even Georgie), and the writing is top-notch.

Author Bio:

Ali decided she wanted to be a writer early on and wrote her first novel when she was at primary school. She did an English degree and spent her early twenties working in various jobs in journalism, including as a reporter for the showbusiness newspaper The Stage. She started writing fiction in earnest after getting married, moving out of London to the Oxfordshire market town of Abingdon and starting a family. She has two children, a daughter and a son who is autistic and was diagnosed when he was four years old.
Ali is fascinated by families, their myths and secrets, and the forces that hold them together, split them up and (sometimes) bring them back together again. She always travels with tissues and a book and has been known to cry over a good story, but is also a big fan of the hopeful ending.