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Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory.” —Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe
In this “rich, complex family saga” (USA Today) full of long-buried family secrets, Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, blithely ignorant of all that awaits them. By 2016, they have four radically different daughters, each in a state of unrest.
Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects.
With the unexpected arrival of young Jonah Bendt—a child placed for adoption by one of the daughters fifteen years before—the Sorensons will be forced to reckon with the rich and varied tapestry of their past. As they grapple with years marred by adolescent angst, infidelity, and resentment, they also find the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.… (more)
Over 600 pages. What in the world can one family be about for this many pages and yet I finished it and admit I enjoyed the family and the book kept up a great momentum. The author soon has another book coming soon and I will enjoy her writing again! ( )
I got this book because of the fabulous reviews. But, I didn’t like the characters at all. Got tired and bored and stopped reading half way through. ( )
Loved, loved, loved this one. Must read if you have sisters or daughters. Lombardo lays out the weird complexity of sisterhood and family with perfect acuity. ( )
Way. Too. Long. With much redundancy about the characters and the plot lines. Some parts of the stories were told three or four times throughout the book which for those of us who remember what is read, is just too much. ( )
So he was left with the women, Violet and Liza and Wendy and Marilyn all staring at him like a horror-movie coven of unassuming kindergarten teachers who were about to disembowel him.
She'd given up so much and so little when she agreed to marry him, but he had been so fixated on having her that he had rarely stopped to consider what it would mean for her to allow herself to be had. This is how he saw it: getting her, winning. It wasn't fair. She deserved more.
Marriage, she had learned, was a strangely pleasurable power game, a careful balance of competing egos, conflicting moods. She could turn hers off in order to allow his to shine. Conservation. Reciprocity. She was allowed to feel confident and excited only when he was feeling anxious and pessimistic. If he worried about everything, she was allowed to worry about nothing.
And it was weird, she thought, feeling adult and aware, how a thing so terrible as losing someone could yield goodness in the ones who were left.
It wasn't always the most logical decision that was the right decision.
Last words
She shifted beneath her husband, reached up and took his hand.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory.” —Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe
In this “rich, complex family saga” (USA Today) full of long-buried family secrets, Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, blithely ignorant of all that awaits them. By 2016, they have four radically different daughters, each in a state of unrest.
Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects.
With the unexpected arrival of young Jonah Bendt—a child placed for adoption by one of the daughters fifteen years before—the Sorensons will be forced to reckon with the rich and varied tapestry of their past. As they grapple with years marred by adolescent angst, infidelity, and resentment, they also find the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.
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