Note: This review is chock full of spoilers! Read at your own risk.

Ugh. This book was a disappointment. I was drawn in by the premise, my mother-in-law having borne twins where one was neurotypical and the other was not (cerebral palsy in our case). As I got into the story, though, its shortcomings became painfully apparent.

The characters were shallow and unlikable. In particular I couldn't stand Norah, whose every hackneyed scene - from her flirtation with alcoholism to her tawdry affairs to her rebirth as a liberated entrepreneur - recalled the one Danielle Steele book I read out of desperation during a boring summer at my parents' house.

So many times, the plot seemed to be building up to a climax which inevitably fell flat - son Paul's drugged-out ransacking of his father's workroom, for example, could've led to his discovering the file on his sister, but instead was resolved with no revelations, just a lame father-son chat and an admonition to clean up the mess - what was the point? As for David and his photography, the title "Memory Keeper" would've been more poignant if, say, David had kept his photography a private thing, albums filled with desperately orchestrated scenes of 'happy' family moments that never were; instead, the author chose another Steele-worthy plot of turning him into a detached, semi-pro photo artist with some high-concept obsession with linking anatomy with nature scenes. Whatever.

The question of how David pulled off his daughter's faked death is also nagging. Even if he did sign the death certificate himself, how did he swing the service and burial? Should we assume that he simply nipped down to "Caskets-R-Us" for a wee box, informed everyone that he stuck her in there, and that no one blinked an eye?

The closest thing to a sympathetic, realistic character was Caroline, the nurse who raised Phoebe. And speaking of Phoebe, the author seemed to care less about transcending Down Syndrome stereotypes and fleshing her out as a fully-realized character than for using her as a bland abstraction, a screen against which the other characters project their neuroses and complicated life choices.

The author is very enamored of setting a scene, right down to the dust motes in the air and the color of people's shoes. She puts too much effort into description and not enough on weaving a compelling plot. Redundancy and trite dialogue are a constant annoyance.

Oh, and the whole Rosemary plot at the end? What? David just happens to stumble upon some pregnant homeless chick in his abandoned childhood home who's about Phoebe's age, and after she takes him prisoner and he confesses his precious sins to her, he basically adopts her a neurotypical stand-in for the broken daughter he gave away? Was that supposed to be some act of redemption - taking in a girl and her baby to atone for the baby he rejected? The whole thing reeks of symbolism, but did anyone else just find this twist not only implausible but creepy? Feh.

I struggled to finish this book, but I wouldn't recommend anyone doing the same to themselves. This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review608 s1 comment Christian1 review19

This book was terrible, not because it was bad, but because it was so good: I couldn't put it down until I finished the final pages at 3 in the morning. Not a good thing, when your alarm goes off at 5:50 AM.

What fascinates me about this book is what it has to say about "secrets." The basic premise: a doctor is forced to deliver his wife's child in the middle of a raging snowstorm. The only complication is that she's actually carrying twins - the first, a healthy beautiful baby boy; the second, a Downs Syndrome baby girl. The year is 1964, when such children are regularly institutionalized - after all, babies this rarely survive long anyway, and even if they do, their quality of life is marginal at best.

As a doctor, David Henry knows his daughters prognosis full well, and rather than force his young wife Norah to deal with such a tragedy, he makes a snap decision to try and protect her from a lifetime of unspeakable grief. His solution: hand the "defective" daughter to his nurse to deliver to an institution, while he informs his wife of the tragedy - she delivered twins, but her daughter did not survive childbirth. She is dead. Gone.

With that simple little secret, the future is inescapably changed, his doom is sealed - unbeknownst to anyone, the nurse flees into hiding to raise the child as her own.

The rest of the book is riveting, because we get to see firsthand the effects of his fall - on his relationship with his wife, his son, and eventually everyone else around him. It's a tragic book (I'm not sure I could read it again), because it's not Hollywood - it's brutally true to the lives that many of us have experienced ourselves.

The one ray of hope comes unexpectedly, as David Henry confesses everything - no more secrets - to a young woman with child.

In the silence David started talking again, trying to explain at first about the snow and the shock and the scalpel flashing in the harsh light. How he has stood outside himself and watched himself moving in the world. How he had woken up every morning of his life for eithteen years thinking maybe today, maybe this was the day he would put things right. But Phoebe was gone and he couldn't find her, so how could he possibly tell Norah?

The secret had worked its way through their marriage, an insidious vine, twisting; she drank too much, and then she began having affairs, that sleazy realtor at the beach, and then the others; he's tried not to notice, to forgive her, for he knew that in some real sense the fault was his. Photo after photo, as if he could stop time or make an image powerful enough to obscure the moment when he had turned and handed his daughter to Caroline Gill. ...

He had handed his daughter to Caroline Gill and that act had led him here, years later, to this girl in motion of her own, this girl who had decided yes, a brief moment of release in the back of a car or in the room of a silent house, this girl who had stood up later, adjusting her clothes, with no knowledge of how that moment was already shaping her life.

She cut [paper] and listened. Her silence made him free. He talked a river, a storm, words rushing through the old house with a force and life he could not stop. At some point he began to weep again, and he could not stop that either. Rosemary made no comment whatsoever. He talked until the words slowed, ebbed, finally ceased.

Silence welled. She did not speak. ...

"All right," she said [at last]. "You're free."

And this single act of honesty produces the deepest intimacy he has ever experienced - it's not sexual, but relational - with a human being who knows the very worst about him and yet who does not reject him for it.

You can read the whole review here [http://seelifedifferently.blogspot.co...]...recently-read196 s Lisa293 7

Will someone please explain to me why, at my age, and I should know better, I'm stilled swayed by the words "No. 1 N.Y. Times Bestseller!"? I found this for fifty cents at my library's used book sale last week. A warning I clearly ignored. But it had a good title, a beautiful, mysterious cover, and lots of people are reading it. Lots of people watch "Oprah" and "The View", too. About halfway through the first paragraph I realized, too late to get my fifty cents back, that this is CHICK LIT. Not even goofy, over-the-top fun chick lit, but "takes itself waaay too serious" chick lit pretending to be literature. The subtitle of this preposterous premised-book, choked with a mountain of useless detail, should have been "My Hidden Breastfeeding Agenda, Brought to You By the La Leche League".

She goes on, on, on, and on about "the milk rising", and other numerous references to the Joy of Breastfeeding. At least in the first chapters. Then she drops it a hot potato, busily filling the pages with endless detail about patterns on people's clothing and how the ground looks. Instead of working on character development.

Anyway, the plot is just too much: Husband Pretends Handicapped Baby is Born Dead Keeps Big Secret From Wife and Marriage is NEVER THE SAME. Well, duh.

The main characters, except Caroline, are wholly unable.
The writing is beyond tolerable; my eyes rolled so often they hurt.
Edwards clearly has "The Writer's Guide to Trite" and "The Big Book of Cliches" on her reference shelf. Ugh. Why do rooms always have to be "small but immaculate"?

Also, while casuarina trees and bougainvillea exist on Aruba, the "trademark tree" is the Divi-divi, and cacti are more typical than flowers. Let me guess, Edwards has never been there, right?

And note to author: You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground about photography. "Photography is about secrets" she writes. Whaaaa???? I thought it was about revelation and discovery. Thanks, Kim, I'll bring my diploma from R.I.T to work tomorrow and shred it in the shredder. And my friends out there, if you ever hear me coin a phrase "Memory Keeper" in reference to me being a photographer, please walk quietly up behind me and smash my skull in with a baseball bat. At least that will be more pleasurable than reading this book.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review163 s Erin7 5

Man I hated this book- the plot had some great potential, but instead you got to witness one scene of frustrated people not knowing how to deal with their emotions after another. Seriously, imagine 60 someodd pages of: wife- "I'm sad, darling, talk to me" husband- "we can't have another baby" silence...followed by wife being angry and husband yet again being emotionally stunted...ok, fine, I see that it's a result of him giving away their daughter with downs syndrome, but I just wouldn't end! After about 10 of these scenes, we get the point. Then we progress to 60 pages of a new hell: son- "dad, I love music, you don't know who I am!" father "son, don't limit yourself to only this option" once again, fine as a single scene, but we have to endure it again and AGAIN. Then the book adds some completely random characters, has people reflect on life ad nauseum, and basically does nothing to make you care about any of the characters. Also, despite basing an entire story around the mistake of giving up a child because of a mental disability, it gave absolutely no credit to the young girl who has downs syndrome! She's more of a prop than a person, no part of the story is told from her perspective, and asside from the desire to marry her boyfriend, never gets the chance to show the world what she wants and feels. Great job reaffirming stereotypes!

My boss loved this book, and some of my coworkers thought it was OK, but obviously I thought it was bad enough to write a barely-cohesive rant rather than a review. This book was a waste of time and paper.160 s1 comment Dorie - Cats&Books :) 1,075 3,402

This is a wonderfully unique story. Ms. Edwards creates characters very real and situations that are effectively believable. After delivering his wife's first child, while she is unaware of what is happening, he delivers another child, this one with Down's syndrome. He makes a quick decision to spare his wife the heartbreak of raising this child and asks his nurse to place the child in an institution. The nurse takes the infant but raises it on her own.

There is always something not quite right about their relationship. He becomes obsessed with photography and draws away from his wife and even his son. Mrs. Henry decides to remake her life and starts a job in a travel agency, which she eventually buys and thrives at this business.

The story moves flawlessly between Henry, Caroline and Phoebe. Much is learned about raising a Down's child and about the power of love.

I think this is a wonderful book club book with many issues to talk about. How decisions are made and the price we pay for the wrong ones. There are great characters and moral issues to be discussed and insights to be learned.all-time-favorite literature117 s Ahmad Sharabiani9,564 149

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a novel by American author Kim Edwards that tells the story of a man who gives away his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to one of the nurses. Published by Viking Press in June 2005.

In early March of 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced to deliver his wife Norah's twins with the help of a nurse, Caroline Gill. Their first child, a boy they name Paul, is born a healthy perfect child, but when the second baby is born, Phoebe, David notices she has Down syndrome. David, recalling the possibility of a heart defect and early death (which his younger sister June had had; dying at the young age of twelve) and decides that the baby girl will be placed in an institution.

Caroline was given the baby to take to the institution, but simply didn't the conditions. She decides to keep and raise the baby, who is named Phoebe. While Caroline is at the store, her car runs out of fuel and she is stranded in the snow with Phoebe. She is picked up by a truck driver, Al Simpson, who drives them to Caroline's home.

Meanwhile, David tells Norah that their daughter died at birth. After hearing that Caroline had kept Phoebe rather than take her to the institution, David bids her to do what she thinks is right. Caroline leaves for Pittsburgh to make a fresh start with Phoebe. ...

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????? ?????? ????? 29/04/1399???? ???????? 31/02/1401???? ???????? ?. ??????? Heather523

At first I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why I was not enjoying a book that sounded as though it would be ‘my kind of book’ in every way, but the more I read and the more I thought about it, the more reasons emerged.

From the beginning of the novel there were little details that bothered me. The plot often felt contrived, as pieces fell together too nicely. Of course life is crazy and there is always the possibility of the little pieces falling in the most peculiar way, but when all of your characters’ lives seem to follow that incredible pattern, it begins to feel ridiculous.

Some of the characters themselves also became clichés. Perhaps I reached a certain point in the story where I began to look for things that bothered me and therefore found them more readily than other readers. Yet, Norah, the mother of the twins, and her sister, Bree seem to never really develop. Bree is the young, free-loving free-spirit who is thus almost a danger to Norah’s thoughts on life – and that is what she remains, even when older and diagnosed with cancer (although Norah does come to appreciate her). Norah, whose life unravels for a bit after she thinks her daughter has died, drinks too much and then begins having affairs, and this is who she remains for most of the novel. The characters just seemed too much a sappy Lifetime movie for me to really take them inside of me and keep with me.

I was also very disappointed in the character of Phoebe, the Down’s syndrome daughter given away by her father. She was the driving force of the novel and yet we really never know her other than glimpses through the eyes of Caroline. Paul, her twin brother, is given thoughts but Phoebe’s mind remains a mystery. I understand the difficulty in writing honestly for a character with Down’s but I kept thinking of the autistic narrator in Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time who was so rich and incredible and believable (if you haven’t read this one, please do!!). I just thought that Edwards had a mission in humanizing those who suffer Down’s syndrome; and that she herself undermines her purpose with the complete omission of Phoebe’s voice. I wanted to know this child as a child and not as a sad plot device. In all fairness, however, I have to say that I did love certain passages, as Edwards’ poetic language captured me wholly.

In the end, I think that my largest issue with this book was the absolute destruction of this family. I know that what happened at the birth of the babies was tragic and life changing but I felt as though it was a bit contrived that it drove every emotion and interaction afterwards for the remainder of the characters’ lives. Perhaps, for me, it just made their bonds from the beginning suspect as their destruction was made so inevitable by that one tragic mistake. I didn’t believe it and perhaps, because we read to understand others and to change ourselves, I do not want to believe it.
fiction97 s SarahAuthor 4 books636

This is one of those books that I always see people reading in parks and on the subway, and I just want to shout at them, "Save yourself! There's still time to quit reading!"

Really, it's one of those books that has an interesting premise/situation, but doesn't go anywhere. The interesting premise is this: a couple has twins and the father sneaks away with the one twin who has Downs Syndrome. The mother doesn't know about this baby and it's raised by the father's coworker. You're interested, right? Well, watch out, because after the initial birth scene, which is good, nothing happens for 200 pages. The author drags you through the book, dangling the moment that the mother finds out about her daughter in front of you.

If this had been an actual good, daring book, it would have started at the point where the mother finds out about her long-lost daughter. Instead, it ends there. Cop out! Waste of time! Emotionally empty! 88 s DeLaina86 163

I read a bunch of of this book prior to reading it myself, and wasn't sure whether or not I would enjoy it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I d this book quite a bit, and here's why:

1. The story was fascinating! What would I have done in that situation? It was fun to imagine myself as Norah, Caroline, David or Paul and determine if my actions would mirror theirs, or if I would have done things differently.

2. The metaphors and imagery that Edwards uses are captivating. For example, she describes "crocuses shouting" and "a wedge of air coming through an open door". The juxtaposition of physical characteristics ascribed to inanimate objects, and the fusion of opposites added texture to the story.

Going along with that, she used the wind as a metaphor-unrest, loneliness, loss, guilt, shame, it spoke a different language to each of the characters and manifested itself in interesting ways. The obsessive compulsive picture taking, the drive to make sense of the world, the bones, the running, the travel-all of these were terrific physical manifestations of inner turmoil, some blatant, others, subtle reminders of the loss.

3. Edwards descriptive abilities made it seem that I was in the room with the characters. She pointed out the pattern of sunlight cascading through the windows, or other mundane details that so many other authors gloss over or ignore because they are too busy telling about events that happen. I realize that in some cases this can be construed as "dragging, boring, or slow" but Edwards used such beautiful, interesting language to describe those things, that it made the story come alive for me, and I felt I was a participant observer, rather than just an observer.

4. One of my personal fascinations is tracking and tracing the pivotal points in people's lives that determine who they really are. Naturally this book was all about how one seemingly right decision affected dozens of lives. How would they have been different if different decision were made?

The only really bothersome thing was that nobody triumphed over the loss...no matter how hard they tried...so, is this a cautionary tale to always tell the truth? To not make decisions based on how you think someone will react, but to give them the agency to decide that for themselves?

I understand how the outcomes of each of the characters happened, but also would have d to have seen some triumph and salvation-and perhaps that's what Rosemary and Jack were supposed to be, at least for David. He couldn't fix his own family so he spent his time fixing others-literally and figuratively. And, I guess, ultimately Phoebe and Caroline triumphed...I just don't to believe that suffering a loss reduces us to throwing our lives to the wind. I want to think that peace and hope can still be found.82 s Lisette BrodeyAuthor 17 books253

Wow, I'm really torn as to what to say about this book. I will start by saying that Kim Edwards is a skilled writer and there's no taking that away from her. Her words flow beautifully and that was greatly appreciated by me.

I began reading this book and fell in love with it. From the beginning, I was very sure that I was going to rate it with five stars. I was intrigued by the premise: It's 1964 and a doctor's wife gives birth to twins. The twins were unexpected (no ultrasounds back then) and so the second baby, a girl with Down's Syndrome, was a shock. In the panic of a moment, the doctor, who had lost his own sister when she was 12 (due to a heart problem), panics and gives his newborn daughter, Phoebe, to his nurse, Caroline. He wants to spare his wife (and himself) the pain of having a child with Down Syndrome who might not live long. Caroline takes the baby to the home, but when she gets there, she realizes she cannot leave the child in such a wretched place and makes a split-second decision to keep her as her own.

The author skillfully goes back and forth between the doctor's family, David and Norah Henry (and their son, Paul) and Caroline's life with the girl, Phoebe. I was intrigued.

Somewhere, around page 175, I started not liking the book so much. What had been a taut, interesting story, started taking little side trips that I felt tarnished the characters and didn't stay within what I thought the author had set up. But I didn't want to dis the book for this reason, because I don't expect the author to go where I might go or where I might have d to see her go. Still, the things that were going on kept nagging at me and making me uneasy in a way that I don't think were intended to make me uneasy.

I began to care less and less about the characters, but stayed with the book because it was interesting to see where it went and I had already invested so much time in reading it. There were too many long descriptions of things that didn't matter to me, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn't get to know the characters in the way I thought I should.

I am stuck in the middle. In the end, I didn't really care for it all too much, but cannot say that others would not. I give the writer kudos for being so skilled with the English language. I didn't really care about any of the characters very much in the end, if at all, and I think that's what really soured me on this book.

This is a hard one for me to judge. If you're at all interested, read it for yourself and see what you think.63 s1 comment Brittany McCann2,146 480

Wow... This book was heavy. I listened to this in my car, so it stretched out for a while, and I got to think about it and talk about it a LOT. The narrator: Martha Plimpton (I guess there is also a version narrated by someone else), did a phenomenal book. She brought this book to life in a fantastic way. Three different accents AND two characters with Down Syndrome are impressive.

These two separate families, each with a twin, are told in chronological order from before birth. The life difficulties and joys between them were sometimes heartbreaking and hard to listen to. A tremendous contemporary piece also deals a lot with the stigma of Down Syndrome, how people reacted to it, and the fights for equal rights for those deemed "retarded" or not worthy of a chance in life.

Overall this book was very well written. I HIGHLY suggest experiencing the Martha Plimpton audio narration of it, if at all possible.

5 Stars5-stars contemporary fiction ...more62 s Lola93 56

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

Reading this book was an up-hill battle for me. I have looked forward to reading it for so long and was expecting great things based on all the praise-worthy on the book jacket. Boy was i disappointed! The plot and synopsis of the story had such excellent promise but along the way the author dropped the ball. It was very difficult to relate or sympathize with Norah Henry, even though she is the one wronged by her husband's rash (but not unfounded) decision to lie about the "supposed" death of their mentally defected daughter while keeping her healthy twin brother.

Norah's self destructive ways and at times selfish childishness did nothing but annoy me and drive me farther away from her pain. What the author did really well was humanizing Dr. David Henry because reading the back of the novel i thought he was a monster. He was the only character i actually felt was not overly contrived. Phoebe "the memory keeper’s daughter" did not have a true voice in the whole novel and that was a poor choice by the author. The major climax and confrontation i was hoping would happen between members of the family never occurred; instead the author decided do something that was shocking but totally unnecessary to the digression of the conflict.

So why did i bother giving it 2 stars? Because the one question i wanted answered -- what would possess a man to do such a horrible thing as to not only give away his newborn daughter but then lie about her death? -- was convincingly answered and somewhat understandable. Also the book was beautifully written, and i appreciate any book that can evoke emotion based on simple sentence construction. So, i will look for other books by Kim Edwards -- at the library not the bookstore, for now.fiction_literature51 s Elizabeth275 873

The Memory Keeper's Daughter crept up on me in a way I never expected. After reading many conflicting I assumed I would either DNF this book at worst or slap 3 stars on it at best.

In 1964, Dr. David Henry delivers his own twins. His son is perfectly healthy. His daughter is born with Down's Syndrome. Remembering his own sickly sister who died young, and the unending sorrow it caused for his mother, he is determined to protect his wife from the same heartache. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution, but Caroline, the nurse, chooses to disappear into another city to raise the child herself. The story unfolds over 25 years - two families, unknowingly bound by the fateful decision made long ago.

Let me start off by saying, this book is not for the faint of heart. It is not a happy story. Dr. Henry and his wife Norah live a life teeming with grief; a heavy secret, unbeknownst to Norah, settles between them and grows ever larger as the years go by. It's a story I might not have understood a few years ago. I've always been troubled by characters that keep secrets or avoid having important conversations, usually thinking it was bad plot device. But I've recently experienced things in my own family that have opened my eyes to certain behaviors. I think this was something that happened a lot in the 60 and 70s. For whatever reason, families tended to brush things under the rug and keep skeletons in the closet.

One of my favourite things about this book, apart from the writing which I found deeply engrossing, was the passage of time. This book takes place over 25 years and I was never once confused about what year it was or how old the twins were at any given time. Kim Edwards' storytelling is seamless; one chapter melting perfectly into the next, even if they were five or ten years apart.

This story won't be for everyone, but it's one I won't forget anytime soon.family-saga i-own48 s MicheleAuthor 5 books124

Dark Trees in the Heart

The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a story about a secret--a terrible, life-altering secret running central to the story and in the lives of the characters. In spite of spanning only twenty-five years, it has an epic feel. A lot happens. We first meet Norah and David Henry on the stormy night she gives birth to twins. The boy, Paul, is born healthy. The second, an unexpected daughter, is born with Down's Syndrome. While his wife lay unconscious, David, a doctor who presides over the deliveries because their doctor is unable to get to them due to the snowstorm, makes the decision to tell his wife the second child died. Trying to spare his wife the pain and suffering of having a child who, in his mind would surely die an early death, hands the baby to his nurse, Caroline Gill. He instructs her to take the child to an institution. Caroline finds she cannot leave the baby in this place, moves away and raises "Phoebe" on her own. This sets the stage for the terrible secret David must live with and the consequences it has on his family.

It's called The Memory Keeper's Daughter because David takes up photography and becomes obsessed with the process. Diving into his hobby, which ultimately brings notoriety to him, he is able to take his mind off his secret, and yet at the same time, focus on the life his lost daughter leads away from him. Photography/snapshots/captured moments are the metaphor for this family and this beautifully written story. There is tremendous detail and one can feel the author using a variety of lenses to provide both wide-angle and tight, intimate views of each scene. Although at times I felt it to be a bit repetitive and wished it were shorter by 50-100 pages, I enjoyed the writing so much, along with the emotion it drew from me, that it didn't matter. I kept turning pages waiting to see how it would all play out. I wasn't disappointed.

This book made me ask the question . . . "what if?" It also illustrated David's view of the world and Paul's discovery, that "each person was an isolated universe. Dark trees in the heart, a fistful of bones." Very well done. 38 s Heidi1,271 195

After reading so many wonderful of this book, I was slightly disappointed, but maybe it's because I reserved reading this book for that last hour or so before bedtime... it was one of those books that begins with a lot of promise.

The touching storyline, which begins right away, lingers too long and then the writer seems to race toward an ending that feels faintly contrived... although with a touch of realism that is fairly wrenching, for a change.39 s Christy4,126 34.7k

4 stars

This is one of those books that kept me intrigued all the way through. It had some sad parts, but overall was a heartwarming read.2023-audio38 s Nicole799 2,287

I randomly picked up the audiobook, the audio quality wasn't very good but I listened to it anyway. It was.. something. I found the story gripping in some places but I also hated some characters. I don't think it's going to be a book I'll remember but I don't regret reading it. 2021 audiobooks fiction33 s Tung630 43

The book begins in 1964. A doctor delivers his own wife’s son, and to his own surprise, their son’s twin sister as well. From her physical features, the doctor recognizes the child has Down’s Syndrome and to protect his wife from the grief of having a child die early (common for Down’s children back then) since he and his own family had to deal with the death of his sister when she was young, the doctor hands the child over to his trusted nurse and instructs her to take the child to an institution nearby. The doctor then lies to his wife and tells her their daughter died at childbirth. Instead of delivering the child to the institution, however, the nurse instead runs off with the child to raise it as her own. The rest of the book’s plot hinges on these two fateful decisions: the doctor’s choice to give up his daughter and lie to his wife, and the nurse’s decision to raise the girl as normally as possible. Note to self: if a book’s author is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, put the book down and walk away. This book is as cliché as they come – not just in the plot and the characterizations, but also in the prose. The plot sets itself up for ongoing tension between the characters due to their past decisions, and then allows all of the characters to redeem themselves at the end. The characters are stereotypes: the noble doctor struggling with a past decision motivated by his past grief; the unsatisfied grieving mother who finds solace in other ways; the noble mother who raises a disabled child to prove that everyone deserves equality. It’s the Iowa Writer’s Workshop deliberately teaches its students to dream up plots worthy of an Oprah’s Book Club Selection. My biggest grievance is that Edwards overwrites every scene. We understand that the characters all have made decisions they regret, and that their pasts inform their present and future actions. We actually don’t need the narrative to spell that out for us in EVERY SINGLE SCENE. We also understand symbolism: early on, there is a scene where the doctor’s wife destroys a wasp nest to prove to herself that she is capable and able to handle things herself without having the doctor protect her and control her – and yet the author has to point that out to the reader, that the wife felt capable and felt she didn’t need to be protected any longer. Apparently, Iowa doesn’t teach Subtlety as a course offering. Pass on this, unless you have no sense of discernment and trite stories.31 s Richard Derus3,185 2,102

Children being treated meat puppets, disabled children being lesser, unwanted, cheating spouses and gawd doctors...spare me.

Very mawkish writing, quite clearly aiming to Be Emotional and Send A Message:
You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.
–and–
She imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away.
Pleased for you if this guff makes you happy. It does not make me anything but irked.29 s Carol72 2

A beautiful and moving story about a secret kept for 25 years and the effects on the people involved. I really enjoyed this one. I knew the secret world come out eventually, I just had that feeling that it would, but I love how the writer moved each of the characters through the story.owned-books29 s Cym & Her Books 🍉127 19

Book 14/100 for the 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge.

5 stars typically mean that the book meant a good deal to me: it taught me something, it changed my outlook on a topic, it moved me and made me super emotional (whether that be enraged, overjoyed, depressed). This book was all of the things and more. I can't believe I left this on my shelf for SO LONG!!!!!!! (party foul
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