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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
Sullivan is terrific at creating real characters and digging into their psyches. The storyline of the main character, Alice, is very well developed, but she misses the mark on the other three main (female) characters. I enjoyed her first novel, "Commencement", a great deal more. "Maine" is probably better suited to an older female audience (30+), while "Commencement" is for the 20/30-somethings.
This book was a snooze fest with lots of very unlikable characters.
This was an engrossing read for me after ten years living in New England. Sullivan's story of a Massachusetts family struggling with all of the challenges of emotional aloofness and the formality of life in the Northeast really pulled me in.
I was really looking forward to reading this book because I enjoyed Commencement. Maine definitely did not disappoint. The four main characters include 3 generations of Kelleher women and they all have different views of each other and their family. I enjoyed getting to know the women as the chapters shifted through each woman's point of view. My only complaint was that the ending seemed abrupt.
This is a book to savor. It's not a plot-driven book. It's more character pieces about how the women in the family are they way they are. Loved every moment of it.
LOVED this book! This is not a lighthearted beach read as the cover may suggest, but a heavy hitting family saga centering around 4 women in an Irish Catholic family. I couldn't get enough of it.
The family dynamic is very interesting. So many different personalities and opinions which is of course a genuine depiction of family life. I thought the story was well done and it kept me interested to find out how things would wrap up. Alice was a difficult woman as a wife, mother and sister. She seems to learn a few things in the end, but wasn't the easiest person to deal with for most of the people around. It carries over into the people her children turn into as well.
I was disappointed- the book kept building and it could have been great but it flopped for me at the end and had a purposeful unfinished ending which left my teeth on edge.
I liked A Saint for All Occasions much better but this was still a good book. I didn’t especially like the characters (except New England), but all the misunderstandings and simmering resentments only frustrated so much— Sullivan is very kind to her unkind characters and pulls them right to the edge before she reels everything back.