A review by dollycas
Gone by Cathi Hanauer

4.0

Eve Adams has worked part-time and taken care of her children while supporting her husband the sculptor. He has had some success in the past but now seems to be in a creative slump. Eve has taken her knowledge of food and written a book and counsels people how to eat healthy and lose weight. Her business is growing, the book goes into a second printing. Her husband, Eric. takes her out to celebrate. She thought the evening went fine until her husband leaves to take home the sitter and disappears.

She has no idea where he went or what is going on but the sitter is missing too. She needs to take care of the kids, the house and the bills and wait to her from her husband. Is he gone forever?

Dollycas's Thoughts

The characters in this story were very interesting. For the most part real and each with their own set of flaws. The one thing that bothered me about this book was passivity of the wife. I understand staying strong for your kids, being scared for the future, and not wanting people to know your husband left you but I felt she needed to put more effort into what was really going on, especially after the husband contacted their daughter. She took on the whole load herself including their quickly emptying checkbook.

I wanted to hate Eric for just running away but he was definitely suffering from a major case of depression. I felt terrible for the kids and Eve had her hands full with a teenager trying to make the most of her father's absence by putting herself into some dangerous situations and a son just trying to understand why his dad left.

This is a story of family dynamics, trying to balance everything, work, kids, family, marriage and life in general. The ending was just too easy for me. This was a major upheaval in this marriage and the reactions of all the characters just seemed off.

The characters may not have acted in the way I wanted but this was still a good story of a very complicated life circumstances. I think that is what the author was going for, unexpected reactions by the characters. Otherwise this book would be like thousands of others. Written this way it creates conflict for the reader which got us involved in the story. You are actually upset with the way things are playing out and the pages keep turning.

Yes, I am a bit conflicted. This is not a story that I am going to scream and shout that you must read but it still a worthy read. It may be a good group read because I think it would prompt healthy discussion. Sometimes we need a story like this to shake up our views a bit.