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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
I stole a cocktail napkin from my aunt's house Wednesday night. It said Family Drama: the gift that keeps on giving. That about sums up this book
I really enjoyed getting into the heads of these four very different women with the shifting first-person perspectives.
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
(originally published at http://nomadreader.blogspot.com)
The backstory: After liking J. Courtney Sullivan's first novel, Commencement (my review), I finally got around to reading her second novel, Maine.
The basics: Maine traces the story of the Kelleher family one summer at their Maine beachhouse. Four women share narration: Alice, the matriarch, whose husband Daniel, died ten years ago; Alice's daughter Kathleen, who lives with her boyfriend and runs a worm farm in California; Alice's daughter-in-law Anne Marie, who has become obsessed with dollhouses; and Kathleen's daughter Maggie, who is thirty-two, unmarried and pregnant.
My thoughts: In recent years I've realized how much I enjoy family sagas. I've always enjoyed multiple narrators, so Maine was right up my alley. I love the way Sullivan writes, and she's grew as a writer between Commencement and Maine. There's a maturity to Maine and its characters that I quite enjoyed. While Maine takes place over the span of a little over a month, the action is split equally between the present and explaining the family's history. In many cases, the four narrators had quite varied perspectives on the same events, which made the reader the most knowledgable person in the room. This technique can frustrate me to no end, but Sullivan does it well--the knowledge helped explain each character's perspectives and actions more thoroughly.
Sullivan's characters have interior monologues that kept me laughing out loud: ""What on earth would we talk about?” Arlo asked, as if most people interacted with their families for the riveting conversation." While it's expressed in humor in this passage, the theme of how, why, and when we spend time with family is a powerful theme in this novel.
Favorite passage: "The joy and spontaneity of summers past were gone now. Daniel’s death had ended them as a family. Each had pulled away from the others, and at some point without realizing it, Alice had gone from the matriarch—keeper of the wisdom and the order—to the old lady you had to look in on before the day’s fun could begin."
The verdict: Maine is not a book that made me wish I were vacationing at their Maine beach house alongside the Kelleher family, but I loved the day I spent with them. I kept changing my mind about which narrator or storyline was favorite, which is a testament to Sullivan's characters.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
The backstory: After liking J. Courtney Sullivan's first novel, Commencement (my review), I finally got around to reading her second novel, Maine.
The basics: Maine traces the story of the Kelleher family one summer at their Maine beachhouse. Four women share narration: Alice, the matriarch, whose husband Daniel, died ten years ago; Alice's daughter Kathleen, who lives with her boyfriend and runs a worm farm in California; Alice's daughter-in-law Anne Marie, who has become obsessed with dollhouses; and Kathleen's daughter Maggie, who is thirty-two, unmarried and pregnant.
My thoughts: In recent years I've realized how much I enjoy family sagas. I've always enjoyed multiple narrators, so Maine was right up my alley. I love the way Sullivan writes, and she's grew as a writer between Commencement and Maine. There's a maturity to Maine and its characters that I quite enjoyed. While Maine takes place over the span of a little over a month, the action is split equally between the present and explaining the family's history. In many cases, the four narrators had quite varied perspectives on the same events, which made the reader the most knowledgable person in the room. This technique can frustrate me to no end, but Sullivan does it well--the knowledge helped explain each character's perspectives and actions more thoroughly.
Sullivan's characters have interior monologues that kept me laughing out loud: ""What on earth would we talk about?” Arlo asked, as if most people interacted with their families for the riveting conversation." While it's expressed in humor in this passage, the theme of how, why, and when we spend time with family is a powerful theme in this novel.
Favorite passage: "The joy and spontaneity of summers past were gone now. Daniel’s death had ended them as a family. Each had pulled away from the others, and at some point without realizing it, Alice had gone from the matriarch—keeper of the wisdom and the order—to the old lady you had to look in on before the day’s fun could begin."
The verdict: Maine is not a book that made me wish I were vacationing at their Maine beach house alongside the Kelleher family, but I loved the day I spent with them. I kept changing my mind about which narrator or storyline was favorite, which is a testament to Sullivan's characters.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Sullivan's writing style is impeccable. The way she writes women characters is some of the best I've ever seen: they are real and relatable and sweet, even in their more irritating moments. I want to know what happens to these women, I care about them. At the same time, this is one of those "plotless" books: it seems like they're building towards some sort of climax, and then there's nothing. It's a little disappointing, but only because I kept expecting some sort of revelation. If you start out from the beginning knowing that there will be no climax, it's great.
This is a generational story of three generations of women, with a secret that the grandmother keeps all to herself that has wounded the family for so long. It is beautifully woven, a great choice for a beach book in my opinion. Just don't prepare yourself for a cliffhanger-style climax; there isn't any.
This is a generational story of three generations of women, with a secret that the grandmother keeps all to herself that has wounded the family for so long. It is beautifully woven, a great choice for a beach book in my opinion. Just don't prepare yourself for a cliffhanger-style climax; there isn't any.
Ridiculous women making poor choices abound in this book. Alice is the delusional matriarch of the family. Kathleen the daughter, Ann Marie the daughter-in-law. Maggie is the granddaughter. By luck, a Massachusetts family has come into owning a pristine plot of land in the heart of Maine's vacationland. The story really doesn't go much of anywhere.
Oh man. I ignored this book for a long time because the cover makes it look like a not-my-jam kind of book: lighthearted sexy wealthy summer something. But it got recommended to me, so I finally picked it up, and it’s actually a multigenerational book about women in toxic family relationships who are currently either old or not conventionally attractive and who are mostly preoccupied with catholicism, gender roles, and dying in a fire (read: much more my jam). This was good. I’m laughing a little right now because I’m reading all of the GR reviews from people who were looking for what the cover advertises and were surprised (but not in the good way that I was) by what they got. No shade to the cover design itself, just to the cover design/content mismatch.
"Maine" was an okay story about a family in New England. Honestly, it was "Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood" meets "Mystic River." The Catholic guilt/mother issues/tragic childhood/borderline abuse thing had been done before, but this was interesting enough to get through. An okay ready if you don't have anything more interesting lying around.
A story about complex family relationships, especially between women, this is normally exactly in my wheelhouse. But something was just lacking for me. By the time I really felt engaged with the characters, the story was almost over. I was shocked to realize there were only 10 pages left, because I felt like I had just finally gotten into the story. I also felt the whole time that it was odd that one of the daughters - Clare - was not included up close and personal in the family drama, though her sister Kathleen and sister-in-law Ann Marie were. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It just fell a little flat for me.
I loved reading this book. It was great reading a book where women are almost the entire focus. Each one has qualities that are relatable, qualities that are hatable, and qualities that are likable. The flaws of Alice, Kathleen, Anne Marie, and Maggie make them all the more realistic for me. Too often characters are completely one dimensional and I appreciate that none of these are.
The story line kept me interested the entire time. I was equally invested in Alice's experiences as a young girl as I was in Kathleen's life after alcoholism and Anne Marie's struggle to find her place. Flashbacks to summers in Maine make the cottage and the many years of experiences there palpable. Sullivan also does a great job of demonstrating what comes with being part of a family. The feeling of wanting to get away from while also having an unbreakable connection with the people you were born into is captured wonderfully. Because of this the shared joys and the heartaches of the Kelleher family are very real.
A final favorite point of the novel are the descriptions of Maine itself. I've never been but reading about the beaches and towns and lobster pounds certainly made me want to.
The story line kept me interested the entire time. I was equally invested in Alice's experiences as a young girl as I was in Kathleen's life after alcoholism and Anne Marie's struggle to find her place. Flashbacks to summers in Maine make the cottage and the many years of experiences there palpable. Sullivan also does a great job of demonstrating what comes with being part of a family. The feeling of wanting to get away from while also having an unbreakable connection with the people you were born into is captured wonderfully. Because of this the shared joys and the heartaches of the Kelleher family are very real.
A final favorite point of the novel are the descriptions of Maine itself. I've never been but reading about the beaches and towns and lobster pounds certainly made me want to.