Ratings36
Average rating4
A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built.
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents'.
As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt--given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before--we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons' past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.
Reviews with the most likes.
Listened to the audiobook while doing other tasks, and it felt like listening to the novel version of a TV show. Enjoyable, but probably wouldn’t have stuck it out if I was reading the physical book.
Families are hard work but they're also the best thing that's ever happened to us. No matter what kind of family you come from, traditional or not, this is a book that will make you laugh and will make think.
It's very long, with so many POV switches (often in the same scene) you can't be blamed for getting confused. And the interruptions, pauses, hems and haws that all the characters do in conversation can get a bit maddening, and yet – and yet, I loved this intergenerational saga of four daughters and their still-crazy-about-each other-after-all-these-years parents. Ideal for fans who plowed through Little Fires Everywhere and need another fix of a story with honest, flawed, loving humans interacting with each other. Not a stereotype in the bunch.
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