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A review by jackiehorne
Out of the Clear Blue Sky by Kristan Higgins
3.0
This one was a very weird read for me. Higgins' story focuses largely on the first person POV of Cape Cod midwife Lillie, who is bent on (laugh-out-loud) revenge on her gaslighting psychiatrist ex-husband, who recently left her for a younger, hotter, richer woman. And every now and then, Higgins throws in a chapter in the third person from the POV of Melissa, the lying, scheming, self-absorbed other woman, showing how and why she came to steal away Lillie's man.
We're clearly meant to be rooting for Lillie: she's a doting mother to only-child Dylan, who is on the cusp of leaving for college; she's a take-care-of-everyone homemaker; she's an encouraging, progressive midwife (in comparison to the old-fashioned intervene all the way femaleOB/GYN who also works at the hospital); and she's put up with her husband's weaknesses without complaint. And she has two major traumatic backstory issues which tug on reader sympathy, both of which are clearly influencing her uncharacteristically towering rage towards her cheating abandoning husband. But I found Lillie's sentimental/clingy attitude towards motherhood (it's the most important thing of all! Oh, we can't tell the poor boy about the divorce right before he leaves for college, he'll be upset, so let's lie until he's gone! I feel so abandoned by Dylan when he leaves for college! Why doesn't he call more often? Why did he go so far away, where I can't even visit???) offputting. Even more troubling for me was her continual putting her best face forward and lying rather than being honest with her family about her own issues and needs. I wondered if perhaps Higgins was setting her up as a woman in need of learning to share one's deepest self with honesty and intimacy, a message I would have found very welcome. But instead the message here is more about not letting the bad guys (ie, one's equally surface ex-husband, and his once welcoming but now abandon-you-immediately parents) get you down. Even at story's end, when she begins a new romantic relationship with an old high school acquaintance, Lillie decides not to tell him that out of worry that he will feel bad. Keeping secrets to protect others' feelings may feel right to some readers, but to me, the sacrifice of honesty only suggests that Lillie's future relationships will lack the same intimacy and understanding of the other that her past ones did.
I was also really puzzled by the Melissa chapters; what are their purpose? How does Higgins wish her reader to feel about her? They are in the third, rather than the first, person, a distancing that suggests that we should not care for her as much as we do for Lillie. In fact, for much of the book, Melissa is presented as stunted, almost sociopathic, in her selfish striving to make a better life for herself. Weirdly, though, she and Lillie both come from working class backgrounds (although apparently Cape Cod fisherman working class is much better than Appalachia layabout and smoke and drink and do drugs working class). Lillie married into money by chance, while Melissa schemed and lied to win her first husband, and continues to scheme and lie to win Lillie's. But by book's end, Melissa is presented more sympathetically; are we meant to like her? Not as much as Lillie, of course, but perhaps just a little? I was never quite sure...
We're clearly meant to be rooting for Lillie: she's a doting mother to only-child Dylan, who is on the cusp of leaving for college; she's a take-care-of-everyone homemaker; she's an encouraging, progressive midwife (in comparison to the old-fashioned intervene all the way femaleOB/GYN who also works at the hospital); and she's put up with her husband's weaknesses without complaint. And she has two major traumatic backstory issues which tug on reader sympathy, both of which are clearly influencing her uncharacteristically towering rage towards her cheating abandoning husband. But I found Lillie's sentimental/clingy attitude towards motherhood (it's the most important thing of all! Oh, we can't tell the poor boy about the divorce right before he leaves for college, he'll be upset, so let's lie until he's gone! I feel so abandoned by Dylan when he leaves for college! Why doesn't he call more often? Why did he go so far away, where I can't even visit???) offputting. Even more troubling for me was her continual putting her best face forward and lying rather than being honest with her family about her own issues and needs. I wondered if perhaps Higgins was setting her up as a woman in need of learning to share one's deepest self with honesty and intimacy, a message I would have found very welcome. But instead the message here is more about not letting the bad guys (ie, one's equally surface ex-husband, and his once welcoming but now abandon-you-immediately parents) get you down. Even at story's end, when she begins a new romantic relationship with an old high school acquaintance, Lillie decides not to tell him that
Spoiler
he was responsible for the loss of her second child, born stillborn mid-term due to an injury to her uterus she suffered as a teenager, an injury caused by said acquaintance's reckless drivingI was also really puzzled by the Melissa chapters; what are their purpose? How does Higgins wish her reader to feel about her? They are in the third, rather than the first, person, a distancing that suggests that we should not care for her as much as we do for Lillie. In fact, for much of the book, Melissa is presented as stunted, almost sociopathic, in her selfish striving to make a better life for herself. Weirdly, though, she and Lillie both come from working class backgrounds (although apparently Cape Cod fisherman working class is much better than Appalachia layabout and smoke and drink and do drugs working class). Lillie married into money by chance, while Melissa schemed and lied to win her first husband, and continues to scheme and lie to win Lillie's. But by book's end, Melissa is presented more sympathetically; are we meant to like her? Not as much as Lillie, of course, but perhaps just a little? I was never quite sure...