Open House: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) (original 2000; edition 2001)

Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors due to her strong character development and compelling story lines. This book while not my favorite, is quite good. Samantha finds her long marriage coming to an end, and is struggling to come to terms with her husband's choice. Samantha sets out to begin a new life for both herself and her so. In the process she begins to rediscover herself. ( )

Quite an entertaining read, this book takes an honest look at one woman's life as she struggles to come to terms with her impending divorce. A nice short read. ( )

great! One of my favorite authors. ( )

Sam Morrow's husband David has left her and their 11-year-old son, Travis, and she has come unmoored. She doesn't know what to do or who to turn to and there's no one that seems terribly fit to give her any of the help she needs. That, and she can't seem to stop desperately wanting David to come back despite her mother's and her best friend's assurances that she's better off without him. She goes through a woman's stages of grief alternately crying and shopping and determining to become a new and better person. It's not long until she realizes that she'll need a roommate or two not to mention a job to be able to keep living in the house she once shared with her husband.

The following weeks find Sam opening up her house and sometimes her heart to a variety of new people. There's Lydia, a friend's elderly mother who hasn't given up on love. There's King, a man who has traded in career and prestige to work odd jobs and learn to enjoy life. There's Lavender Blue who hates her real name and the world and thinks life has nothing good in store for her. There's Edward, the gay hairdresser, who brings hair styling to the table as a fringe benefit of having him as a tenant. It's this motley collection of people that will teach Sam that, even if one chapter of her life has come to an end, her life and love are far from over.

I really enjoyed Open House and was taken by surprise by Berg's writing which is surprisingly powerful in its own understated way. Berg's story helped me to understand and relate to a life utterly unlike mine, and she drew my sympathies to a narrator whose situation, while not atypical, is foreign to my own experience. Despite our differences, I related to Sam as she struggled to find her footing in a world where the familiar has been stripped away. The wrenching pain of the end of a marriage is vividly rendered, and Sam's slow healing is cathartic for both her and the reader.

Now, if you're anything like me, you've read this story or maybe watched it on TV half a dozen times. Girl gets married young, girl gives up self for husband and family. Then the husband leaves, and the woman has to pick up the pieces and rediscover herself at the same time. You've read it, but you haven't read it done this well. Berg has taken an old story and with a convincing narrator and a keen eye for emotional nuance has succeeded in making it fresh again. ( )

Good book, fast read. All about divorce and separation. ( )