A review by shesnotthere
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

3.0

This was a book club selection. I thought I had already read something by Anna Quindlen, but I had not. She basically writes the same genre as Jodi Picoult & Anita Shreve, where a perfect family lives idyllic lives until SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENS... I'm not knocking the premise, because I do read these books from time to time. I liked Ms. Quindlen's writing style. She didn't dumb anything down or make the plot ridiculously implausible (which is the reason why I don't read Jodi Picoult anymore). I did have three issues with the book that just irritated me to no end, sort of like a strawberry seed that gets stuck between the teeth. The first issue I had was some of the main characters were not fully developed. The father/husband had about five sentences total in the entire book. Secondly, Mary Beth, the mother, felt no guilt about anything. If I were in her shoes, I would have forever felt like I should have been alert enough to stop what had happened or at least been able to call the police. Also, she never had any sort of realization that her friend, Oliva, took her & Max in to her cottage while she refused to take Kiernan in after the death of his younger brother. Plus, she had no remorse about having the affair with Kiernan's father. She was more concerned that someone might have found out about the affair rather than feeling regret about the act itself. Thirdly, there were way too many characters in the aftermath of the murders. The last third of the book seemed way to muddled. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I wouldn't mind reading a different novel by Ms. Quindlen.