By Ann Packer
A story about friendship and motherhood from the author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, set in California's Bay area. Liz and Sarabeth have been as close as sisters ever since high school, when Sarabeth moved in with Liz’s family after her mother commit suicide. Now many years later, Liz has a family of her own. Her son Joe is cute and athletic, and while her daughter Lauren appears to be a normal teenager, she is deeply depressed and later slits her wrists and ingests all the pills in her medicine cabinet in a desperate cry for help.
Lauren’s suicide attempt crushes her family and makes Liz doubt her ability as a mother. For Sarabeth, it brings back much of pain surrounding her mother’s death. Instead of helping each other, Liz and Sarabeth quickly grow apart. Sarabeth feels abandoned by her only real friend and Liz realizes that she’s tired of Sarabeth’s neediness, although these women ultimately reconcile and Lauren’s mental condition slowly improves by the end of the book.
I found this book to be just okay. I found the story’s premise about friendship interesting, but Liz and Sarabeth both seemed a little boring to me. All the characters were slightly dull and for some reason, this book didn’t really make me feel anything, although I felt like it should. I think Lauren's depression was handled in a realistic way. In my opinion, this book is adequate, but not as engaging as Packer’s previous work.
A story about friendship and motherhood from the author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, set in California's Bay area. Liz and Sarabeth have been as close as sisters ever since high school, when Sarabeth moved in with Liz’s family after her mother commit suicide. Now many years later, Liz has a family of her own. Her son Joe is cute and athletic, and while her daughter Lauren appears to be a normal teenager, she is deeply depressed and later slits her wrists and ingests all the pills in her medicine cabinet in a desperate cry for help.
Lauren’s suicide attempt crushes her family and makes Liz doubt her ability as a mother. For Sarabeth, it brings back much of pain surrounding her mother’s death. Instead of helping each other, Liz and Sarabeth quickly grow apart. Sarabeth feels abandoned by her only real friend and Liz realizes that she’s tired of Sarabeth’s neediness, although these women ultimately reconcile and Lauren’s mental condition slowly improves by the end of the book.
I found this book to be just okay. I found the story’s premise about friendship interesting, but Liz and Sarabeth both seemed a little boring to me. All the characters were slightly dull and for some reason, this book didn’t really make me feel anything, although I felt like it should. I think Lauren's depression was handled in a realistic way. In my opinion, this book is adequate, but not as engaging as Packer’s previous work.
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