Meg Mitchell Moore

"If once you have slept on an island / You'll never be quite the same" (Rachel Field, "If Once You Have Slept on an Island"). People head to islands for many reasons: a place to vacation, a chance to slow down and figure things out, a place to heal, a place to live. Islands are different places from the mainland somehow, even if people are just going about their lives, especially if the island is one dependent on summer tourism. Meg Mitchell Moore has captured some of the unique summer magic show more of an island and the people on it in her charming latest novel, The Islanders.

Anthony Puckett, the son of a famed thriller writer, is an author himself who had a much feted first novel. His second novel turned into a huge literary scandal. He started drinking and his wife kicked him out, withholding their young son from him. He's on Block Island house-sitting a friend's uncle's place while trying to come to terms with what he did to his life. Depressed and ashamed, he just wants to fade into the background and disappear. Joy is a year-round islander who owns and runs the island bakery. Joy Bombs is famous for its reinvented whoopie pies but this summer Joy is struggling both financially and personally. Her rent has increased and a French food truck that sells macarons is giving her stiff competition. Her 13 year old daughter is heading into the tough teen years, making Joy, a single parent, feel abandoned and as if she's failing as a mom. That her ex-husband has gotten his life together with a second wife and cute younger daughter doesn't help her feelings of inadequacy. Lu is a stay at home mom to two young boys. Her husband is a surgeon and she used to be a lawyer but she quit her career to stay home with their children. Their family has moved out to Block Island for the summer, compliments of her in-laws' (unasked for) generosity. Four years into this life of domesticity, Lu is unhappy and unfulfilled. She feels trapped. She's lost her sense of self but she's starting to secretly reclaim it, working on something that gives her great joy, something that has the potential to turn into a job that completes her, if only she can find the courage to tell her husband her needs and wants have changed. The summer proves one of great change for all three of them.

Each of the three main characters here are floundering, facing changes, and trying to see what the future holds for them. As their lives intertwine and their secrets and fears come out, they each find a way forward towards the life that will fulfill them. They learn more about themselves and learn to accept themselves, warts and all, as the summer unfolds. The novel rotates through each of the three main characters, opening their lives, decisions, and motivations up to the reader. If the characters start by seeming unconnected, they eventually come together in ways that are both expected and realistic. There are no big explosive secrets to reveal, just interesting personal dramas in characters living and making a life on the same island. Anthony, Joy, and Lu are not always sympathetic, making poor decisions, hiding things that shouldn't be hidden, but ultimately they are honest with themselves and about their needs. This is an engaging summer novel about people trying to get it right, trying to find themselves, trying to take the scary next step, personally and professionally. The ending comes a little quickly, like a sudden summer storm, and I for one, would have liked more time with these three flawed, human characters getting to that end but overall, the novel was a very satisfying way to spend a few hours. show less

My two oldest children are only a year apart in school. If I thought it was hard having them close in age as babies, I never even thought about the potential difficulties once they were high schoolers. And yet because doing the college application thing was so much fun last year, we're thrilled to get to do it all over again this year. (Terrible how sarcasm doesn't register very well in writing.) As you might suspect, the college search and application process is not fun in any way, shape, show more or form. So you could be forgiven for wondering why I'd choose to read a book about a family going through that very same thing. Meg Mitchell Moore's novel, The Admissions, won't help calm any fears you have about the process; in fact, it might amp them up a bit, but it's a fantastic and terrifying representation of a high achieving high school senior, her driven parents, and the younger siblings whose issues are overlooked as they take a backseat to the all important application.

The Hawthorne family looks like they have everything they could ever want. Father Gabe is a partner in a management consulting firm. Mother Nora is a very successful real estate agent in pricey Marin County. Oldest daughter Angela is her class' valedictorian and a phenomenal cross country runner. Middle child Cecily is passionate about Irish dancing. And baby of the family Maya is a pretty happy go lucky second grader. But life isn't everything it seems on the surface and as Angela applies to Harvard, the dream school she's been groomed for since toddlerhood, the cracks in the picture of perfection start to widen. Gabe has a secret at work that the company's newest intern, a predatory piece of work, threatens to expose. Worse, it's a secret he's kept even from Nora. Nora is completely overwhelmed with her job and the girls. A very important listing is about to expire and be pulled from her, she could be held accountable for something that was never disclosed on a multi-million dollar home she sold several years ago, and she's convinced that an accident that happened on her watch, an accident she never told Gabe about, could be the reason that Maya can't read yet. Angela is desperate to hold onto her number one class ranking, stooping to means she'd once never have considered and she can't even begin to imagine what will happen if she doesn't get into Harvard early admission. Cecily's dancing is suddenly slightly off and she's dwelling on some pretty morbid stuff for an elementary school kid. And of course, Maya can't read.

None of the characters have shared their burdens with the others, giving the novel an ever increasing sense of secrets kept, intentional omissions, and little white lies all of which threaten to destroy the characters and this life they've built. Despite the reader knowing or guessing all of the secrets, still the rising tide of guilt and poor decisions slowly and inexorably strangles the reader as the pages turn. Moore has really captured the panic and nausea, the stress and pressure of applying to college. Your heart can't help but go out to the over-achieving Angela who is so focused on the things that she thinks will make her application stand out that she has no time to enjoy herself or be a kid. Everything in her life has to be a means to an end and she can't afford to slip, ever. Every member of this family can feel the tension and stress filling their home with increasing desperation. And that's no way to live. Too wrapped up in their own personal dramas to admit to each other the difficulties they are facing, the terrible choices they've made, or the real future they want, it is still clear that these characters do care for each other and care deeply. Moore's creative use of SAT words throughout Angela's narrative sections helps highlight the way that everything about the college application process and the pressure to perform and know everything pervades the high school senior's entire life. Gabe's fears at work and Nora's out of kilter work home life balance serve to make them incredibly sympathetic and realistic. The story alternates perspectives between all of the Hawthornes except Maya, giving the reader a complete picture of the family that the characters themselves don't have. This makes the difficulties each character faces that much more poignant to a reader who can possibly relate to the underlying motivations of each. The narrative pacing is taut and increases consistently until the end when everything unravels, as it must. After the tension of the bulk of the book, the ending is a bit easy but it is a hopeful antidote to the stress that precedes it. A thoroughly enjoyable cautionary tale about self-imposed pressures consuming us, stealing our joy in life, and making us willing to deviate from who we know ourselves to be (or to not even have the chance to find out who we are), this will make you re-evaluate your life, your goals, and the expectations you place not only on yourself but on those you love. show less

The theme of ‘So Far Away’, spelled out frequently, is that teenaged girls are in danger. Always. Whether the danger is girls their own age, predatory bosses, or heroin, the threat is there.

The story has three main protagonists: Kathleen, a 50ish archivist who lost her own daughter many years ago; Natalie, a 13 year old whose parents have split and are ignoring her as she gets bullied at school and on line; and Bridget, a young woman who emigrated from Ireland in the 1920s to work as a show more maid. Natalie seeks Kathleen’s help to find her ancestors for a school project, and ends up finding Bridget’s notebook, written when she was old. How Natalie deals with the bullying, how Kathleen deals with her loss and with Natalie and the connection between Bridget and Natalie make up a story of loss, survival, and how much everyone depends on other people.

I couldn’t put the book down; it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. But at the same time, I felt it had flaws. Kathleen is incredibly pushy and I actually didn’t care for her a great deal, even though I felt sympathy for her situation. Natalie’s father was almost a caricature of self involvement. The characters just needed a bit more work. And the theme of girls being in danger at all times being told instead of being shown so many times was heavy handed. Still, it’s a very good book, and now I must look for the author’s first novel. show less

Meg Mitchell Moore perfectly skewers the culture of busyness and overachievement that is so prevalent today. Readers who are parents of school-aged children will find themselves equally amused and horrified by the pressures students face. At the same time, the discomfort they feel at recognizing themselves in Nora and Gabe drives home Ms. Moore’s point. The sardonic humor is biting, but it is the despair under which each member of the family soon strains which strikes the strongest chord show more within readers. The story is humorously bittersweet while striking a bit too close to home for comfort. More importantly, the message is not only timely but very important and well worth the read. show less