A review by jeanetterenee
Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg

4.0

I believe this was Elizabeth Berg's first novel. In very spare, beautiful prose, she tells the story through the eyes of twelve-year-old Katie. Katie's mother has recently died of cancer. Katie is left to navigate the moods of her distant and sometimes abusive father, while at the same time adolescing, trying to figure out how to become a young woman and fit in with her peers. Berg does a wonderful job of expressing Katie's feelings and worries, as well as her wishful thinking that her mother isn't really dead and will suddenly reappear when Katie needs her most.
A quick read. You could easily read it in an afternoon, but I wasn't in a hurry and took two days.