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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Takes place leading up to and following the 2016 election
This was a sweet story, but I’m not sure really anything happened. Books like this are interesting to me, but not fascinating, so while I enjoy reading them, I rarely give them high reviews. This one I gave a 3.5. Not because it was bad, but because it didn’t wow or make me ponder or question anything.
In Marrying the Ketchups, we follow three generations of the Sullivans family and their lives. Two things are for certain, their family restaurant, and their love of the Cubs. However, over the course of a few months the lives of almost all the family members get turned upside down and everything seems uncertain. One goes through a divorce, someone dies, another is forced into a retirement community, the restaurant needs a facelift, someone goes through a career change, and the teenager lashes out. Lots to handle, and we go through each thing with the family. You are right there with them as they figure it out.
This book, and this type of book, always make me feel like I am part of a tv show. I do enjoy getting lost in the book and finding where it will take me, but I am often disappointed that we don’t go far. I know real life isn’t all about bangs and pops, but I do like more drama and this book was subdued. This book was also political - about an issue that just happened and while I won’t say which side I fall on, the book had strong feelings. So, this wasn’t a let-down, but it wasn’t a high, hence a strong 3.5 from me.
In Marrying the Ketchups, we follow three generations of the Sullivans family and their lives. Two things are for certain, their family restaurant, and their love of the Cubs. However, over the course of a few months the lives of almost all the family members get turned upside down and everything seems uncertain. One goes through a divorce, someone dies, another is forced into a retirement community, the restaurant needs a facelift, someone goes through a career change, and the teenager lashes out. Lots to handle, and we go through each thing with the family. You are right there with them as they figure it out.
This book, and this type of book, always make me feel like I am part of a tv show. I do enjoy getting lost in the book and finding where it will take me, but I am often disappointed that we don’t go far. I know real life isn’t all about bangs and pops, but I do like more drama and this book was subdued. This book was also political - about an issue that just happened and while I won’t say which side I fall on, the book had strong feelings. So, this wasn’t a let-down, but it wasn’t a high, hence a strong 3.5 from me.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Definitely helped me enjoy this book that clearly these are my people. A close knit family left traumatized by the election of trump even though it doesn’t directly touch them (it’s not otherwise a story about politics). I found all of their stories interesting and cared about what happened to them
Oak Park, the Cubs, the World Series, and the election is all I have to say.
Probably 4.5 stars for me. This was a fun family drama set in a family restaurant in Chicago. It was set in 2016 and really captured the disbelief and horror of Trump's election.
I really did enjoy this, but I think the author was at her weakness when trying to get political. Perhaps it is just that I feel alienated by the liberal woes of white women, but I found her to be at her least insightful and compelling there. I enjoyed and appreciated the honesty with which the characters worse instincts and behavior were laid out and how much love there still was despite all the irritation and resentment. Overall, warm and lovely and unflinching.
Other readers/reviewers here have already given enough of a synopsis of the story so it isn’t necessary to repeat it. I received a copy of this book through Goodread’s Giveaways.
I enjoyed reading this book and found it funny at times, sad at others, and thought provoking.
A North Shore woman confronting divorce; of making a choice between the sterile “entitled” Lake Forest existence, raising two children virtually alone, or returning home to something less certain but potentially more fulfilling; her younger sister realizing her singing career was at an end, both return to what had been a safe place when they were growing up.
It is ironic that the “safe place” is slowly sinking as sadly most neighborhood family restaurants have. The patriarch has died and the next oldest seems unwilling to change, to accept the fact that the old clientele are also dying. A cousin who seems to be aware of the inevitable is too locked up at first in his own relationship turmoil and doesn’t try to fight the old family ways.
Added to this are the all too familiar generational family squabbles which, rather than dysfunctional, seem typical of many families today.
The book is not without its humorous and sexy aspects of course as the characters try to survive through the angst following the 2016 election. Desperately, the characters seem to be trying to get their feet back on firmer terrain. The restaurant can only do that temporarily as they begin to realize.
I enjoyed reading this book and found it funny at times, sad at others, and thought provoking.
A North Shore woman confronting divorce; of making a choice between the sterile “entitled” Lake Forest existence, raising two children virtually alone, or returning home to something less certain but potentially more fulfilling; her younger sister realizing her singing career was at an end, both return to what had been a safe place when they were growing up.
It is ironic that the “safe place” is slowly sinking as sadly most neighborhood family restaurants have. The patriarch has died and the next oldest seems unwilling to change, to accept the fact that the old clientele are also dying. A cousin who seems to be aware of the inevitable is too locked up at first in his own relationship turmoil and doesn’t try to fight the old family ways.
Added to this are the all too familiar generational family squabbles which, rather than dysfunctional, seem typical of many families today.
The book is not without its humorous and sexy aspects of course as the characters try to survive through the angst following the 2016 election. Desperately, the characters seem to be trying to get their feet back on firmer terrain. The restaurant can only do that temporarily as they begin to realize.
3.5
A nice, sweet read. Funny and real without being silly.
A nice, sweet read. Funny and real without being silly.