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greatestheights's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Addiction, and Death
Moderate: Child abuse
balletbookworm's review
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
To be honest, had I not been reading this book for the book club at my store (which I moderate), I probably would have put this down around 20% complete, wandered off, and just never finished it. I ended up having to pick up the audiobook and listen to it at 2x speed to get through it. This was...fine. I just didn't find the three point-of-view characters to be distinct from each other in tone. Ali didn't even seem like a tween/teen girl, like, what does she like? Not like? Not feel like doing any more because she's sad?? An incredible amount is left unexplored in the Annemarie character.
I also had an incredibly hard time situating this book in a time period. It felt like Quindlen was trying so hard to make the situation and characters generalizable or perhaps "timeless" that she ended up making them just bland and gray. There are no references to...anything. We eventually get a few bits here and there where you can kind of figure out that it's maybe mid-2010s but we know more about the area (rural, eastern-ish Pennsylvania) because of Annemarie's contacts with the Mennonites and Amish than we do about the three main characters themselves.
And, had I DNF'd at 20%, I would have been spared the use of the Jenny storyline, which I felt was extremely poorly handled, particularly when her older sister shows up out of the blue and trauma dumps in the school counselor's office.
I also had an incredibly hard time situating this book in a time period. It felt like Quindlen was trying so hard to make the situation and characters generalizable or perhaps "timeless" that she ended up making them just bland and gray. There are no references to...anything. We eventually get a few bits here and there where you can kind of figure out that it's maybe mid-2010s but we know more about the area (rural, eastern-ish Pennsylvania) because of Annemarie's contacts with the Mennonites and Amish than we do about the three main characters themselves.
And, had I DNF'd at 20%, I would have been spared the use of the Jenny storyline, which I felt was extremely poorly handled, particularly when her older sister shows up out of the blue and trauma dumps in the school counselor's office.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Addiction
Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault
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