A review by alexrafinski
Ripeness by Sarah Moss

emotional sad slow-paced

4.5

Magnificent prose but so much pain in this book.   Very hard to sum up in just a few words but here goes.  The chapters alternate from Edith as an old woman living in Ireland and Edith as a young girl sent to Italy to help her sister through her unwanted pregnancy.  The sister Lydia comes across as unbelievably selfish - she is a ballet dancer so perhaps that goes with the territory.  There is a small subplot with Edith’s friend being found via a DNA site by her half brother and the book is at least partly a protest against trying to reduce humans to something scientific when the human story is so much more important.