A Spool of Blue Thread

A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel
By Anne Taylor
Published: 2016, Ballantine Books
Genre: Literature, Family Life

 

Late one July evening in 1994, Red and Abby Whitshank had a phone call from their son Denny. They were getting ready for bed at the time.

I grabbed this book from Half Price Books because the cover intrigued me and the price was right. I had high hopes for it because it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and it was a Pulitzer Prize winner.

I thought this novel was very soap opera like. To me, it felt like the characters and the story had no depth, that it was very much just a surface skimming novel. As I continued through the pages, I kept waiting and hoping for the author to dig in just a bit more and flesh out the characters, but alas, it never occurred. I felt that the pages were full of fluff and not enough meat.

It was certainly not all bad. It had its good moments. If you’re looking for a very easy, beachy, soap opera type of book, then this is certainly it. I was looking for a Pulitzer Prize winning book and I felt that it did not live up to that.  The ending did not leave me satisfied either.

Perhaps someone else out there has read this novel and has a different perspective? Please share in the comments if you do.

…… When he reached Linnie’s side he took hold of her hand, and the four of them climbed the steps. They crossed the porch. He unlocked the door. They walked into the house. Their lives began.

A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel

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the mother’s promise

The Mother’s Promise: A Novel
By Sally Hepworth
Published: 2018, St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Literature, Fiction, Family Life, Mental Health

When the doctor gave Alice Stanhope the news, she was thinking about Zoe. Was she all right? Was today a bad day? What was she doing? In fact, Alice was so swept up in thoughts of Zoe that when the doctor cleared his throat she startled.

Imagine you are a relatively young mom, with a teenager daughter who has severe social anxiety, no husband, a difficult past. Your daughter has been your whole life; because of her anxiety, you have not had an opportunity to make connections with other adults, you are alone in the world, besides your daughter.

Imagine that you are a teenage girl, suffering from severe anxiety for most of your life. Because of your anxiety, the only friend you really have in the world is you mom; the only one who understands you completely, the only one who accepts you despite how your anxiety affects her life, the only one you could ever rely on and count on. Now imagine that one person, your whole world, has been diagnosed with cancer.

They have been a family of two for a very long time. They have only ever had each other to rely on. Now they face the possibility of losing each other. Now, they have to open themselves up to help, to relationships with other people, in order to survive this crisis.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. Sally Hepworth beautifully writes about the intricacies of a mother/daughter relationship. She has a fantastic way of capturing the positive and negative aspects of understanding and coping with anxiety from both the daughter’s viewpoint as well as the mother’s perspective.

The author was able to include and develop so many facets of life into one book. Mothers and daughters, being a single mother, dealing with social anxiety, cancer, finding your place in the world, life and death. It was a wonderfully, bittersweet story that I enjoyed reading. I definitely recommend it.

The truth is, I’ll never be normal. I’ll never be able to stand in front of a group and ad-lib a speech. I’ll probably never walk down the street without worrying if people are looking at me, I probably won’t be able to talk to a boy without sweating and shaking. But I’ll try to do these things anyway. So I won’t be by myself anymore. So I’ll be out in the world . . . with you.

The Mother’s Promise: A Novel

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Little Fires Everywhere

.Little Fires Everywhere
By Celeste Ng
Published: 2017, Penguin Press
Genre: Literature, Fiction, Family Life

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

There has been a lot of talk about this recent release from Celeste Ng in the book community so I have been wanting to read it for quite some time. It finally came up to the top of the TBR stack.

The book, as you can see from the quote above, starts quite dramatically. The author commences with the ending and then works back through the novel illustrating how the characters got to this emotional finish.

As we work our way through the novel, we find out how Mia and Pearl’s history influences the Richardson family as well as their family friends, the McColloughs. Mia’s choices in the past have an impact on how she parents Pearl, how she interacts with the Richardson family and how she reacts to the situation with the McCollough family; which then creates circumstances that may have never occurred if Mia and Pearl had not just shown up one day.

The Shaker Heights neighborhood somewhat reminded me of The Stepford Wives; everything appeared perfect and neat with zero issues but behind closed doors was another story. With the addition of Mia and Pearl into this community, they start to realize that life is not as they always thought it was.

Some readers enjoy an ending in a book that is somewhat open; an ending that allows you to draw your own conclusions. I am not one of those people. I did not enjoy the ending. I need a book to tie up all the loose ends and to know what the finished product is. This book left me wanting more.

Overall, it was a great book and I enjoyed the story line; it was a well written novel. I would recommend it to those that don’t mind an ending that leaves you questioning.

Little Fires Everywhere

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