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Nov 05, 2017
This is again a Bookclub choice. It was easy to read and I think her characters were well defined. The storyline flows well and is easily followed. However every character from Jolene down to Lulu are caricatures. Jolene, the yound woman who has despite her unhappy childhood manages to carve out a wonderful well structured life, Michael, the hard working lawyer principled who has difficulty dealing with the death of his father who he idolized, Betsy the hormonal pre-teen and Lulu the spoiled pre-schooler. Jolene, who grew up with drunken parents who fought like cats and dogs never raises her voice, does everything for her family, forgives everything and anything her daughters do and Michael who works hard but is essentially makes no decisions with respect to family life and finds himself wondering if his relationship and family life is what he wants. Of course when Jolene is deployed to Iraq and Michael has to take over family responsibilities he does it differently and he sees the light with respect to his role in his family. Surprise surprise! The last third of the book is well done, Ms. Hannah does a good job in describing the difficulties returning soldiers face and it is very predictable. Good read as an easy diversion but I would not call this a classic.