Amanda Eyre Ward

The cover would make you think..."OH! This looks kind of bright and shiny." It is so far from that. These people have PROBLEMS and there is literally nothing light-hearted about how they come to terms with those problems. It's not necessarily the book I have problems with though it didn't WOW me.

***TRIGGER WARNING & SPOILERS AHEAD***

I'm gonna keep it pretty simple. There's two different suicides (one only an attempt) featured and LOTS of characters that should be medicated for their show more depression. There is no introspection, they just kind of vomit out all of their problems (or bottle them up) and assume that everyone around them didn't grow up, too.

That part I understand so well -- I'm the youngest, I have always been treated like I'm a teenager because that's the age I was when my siblings became "adults". They've forgotten that eventually I became an adult, too. The interactions between the siblings and there mom are so relatable.

The suicidal dad and (later) sister though...not something I expected based on the description. Is suicide really a plot device now? Is that the trend novels are moving toward? Are authors (and their book marketers -- and I'm including Reese's Book Club as a marketer) consciously doing this? I'm an author, I'm gonna make this "unique" by including a suicide, but let's not include that in the blurb because it's gonna be a "surprise" for the reader. It's a plot twist, get it? Let's give this one a bright & shiny cover with umbrellas -- no one will ever see the dark & twisty suicide coming!

Well...you fooled me again publishers. Please stop.

Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive to this right now? Or maybe it's time I give up on contemporary novels for a bit. When they all start to become the same book, it becomes tedious and BORING. One successful dysfunctional family novel means that EVERY publisher wants to push THEIR dysfunctional family dramas to the front. Remember when Gone Girl came out and EVERYTHING WAS GONE GIRL AFTER THAT? Well, we're there with the dysfunctional family trend. It's DONE NOW. YOU'VE KILLED IT FOR ME.

I'm ready for something new. I feel like Buffy in the musical episode. Please give me something to sing about, ya'll!

If you're one of those that reads reviews before reading the book, read these instead:
Reunion by Hannah Pittard
The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo show less

Surprisingly Fun and Wonderfully Unexpected

I picked up this book looking for a quick easy beach read and, to be honest, wasn't expecting much from it. But, Ward surprised me in every sense of the word and presented me not with an appetizer but with a five course meal. Her writing was delightfully nuanced, and each character spoke with their own voice to such a point that I didn't need their name as the chapter title to remind me who was speaking, and even lesser voiced characters were all show more unique and real to me as a reader. The connections and interweaving of books, authors, and characters as reference and inspiration all created a wonderful network of associations. This was a great move, because these works served as clues to the mystery at the heart of Ward's book. As you can see, although this book's cover and blurb may resemble a run of the mill RomCom, this book is so much more. I love that genre, but Ward has embedded her story and characters with so much bitter-sweet humor, psychology, literary history, and history that together wove a perfect tapestry in which I was not just reading but participating in the events as a fourth Peacock Sister! show less

A very postmodern book, if only in its undertones. This was a surprisingly quick read which I devoured in a single afternoon. This engrossing plot features a triangle between three women: a prisoner on Death Row, a doctor, and a librarian. At first, the three narratives seem to be randomly thrown together, but their connection is revealed soon enough. You won't be able to put it down after that.

As a native Texan, I enjoyed the well-researched bits about Huntsville, the prisons, and the death show more sentence. Texas executes more people than any other state, and middle schools statewide make the field trip / pilgrimage to the Huntsville museum where Old Sparky is retired. From an early age, we learn about the lethal injection and the gruesome details of how exactly an execution-via-electric chair works. I recently went to the museum as an adult and was horrified to see a gift shop t-shirt featuring Old Sparky, with the slogan "Riding Thunder." That is fucked.

Ward is obviously not from Texas, but this fact, obviously, does not take away from the quality of her writing, which is well-researched and written in lovely prose. However, her opinions on the death penalty go against everything most Texans believe. Her characters do not reflect the average Texan. Here, the death penalty is not just a policy, but a part of religion. Just like gun rights.

Ward devalues the death penalty. As in, what good would this woman's death do? What good could come from killing this woman? We look at this woman's life before prison and sympathize with her plight, but Ward seems to be advocating that justice is relative. Her character is a murderer, but she had such a tragic life, surely we can judge the murder in a different life?

The death penalty is not a cruel and unusual punishment... There are many arguments made about its cruelty, but as for unusual, it's definitely not, because we do it! A lot. Especially in Texas. This is a common punishment. Common! If you tip the scales of justice, they must be righted again. Ward questions this sentiment with grace. show less

This was the first book I read outdoors this year and it served that purpose well, this has a snappy pace, it entertains, and there’s a travel element to it. The middle-ground this found between beach read and more serious subject matter (suicide, mental health, etc), worked for me, but there were areas of this where I was left feeling like there should have been a bit more on the page.

Aside from Regan, and Cord’s fiance Giovanni, this is a pretty self-absorbed bunch, so if liking show more characters is a must for you, this might prove a bit challenging, but they are all at interesting crossroads in their lives as they embark on this cruise together so even if they didn’t really carve out a place in my heart, they did hold my attention. I kind of thought of them as akin to the kind of soap opera characters (I love soaps, that comparison is not an insult), where you might not love their behavior but you’re still engaged and curious about where they’re going to end up.

However, I wish my curiosity felt more thoroughly satisfied.

There were too many instances where it felt like important scenes were skipped over. You don’t even see the first time this sort of estranged family meets up to go on the cruise, and there are rifts in this family, secrets coming out, a life and death crisis, I could go on and on about moments where I was just like but wait, we’ve moved on to here now in the story and didn’t actually see what unfolded there, the reader isn’t getting any conversation about this? It’s not like I expected these people to get all warm and fuzzy with one another, that’s not who they are or where there relationships are at, Charlotte’s not suddenly going to be a perfect mother saying all the right things, but I still wanted to hear whatever she did say to a certain child after a certain situation, even if it wasn’t anything soothing. It felt odd to jump past things like that, it feels like chunks of story are missing when things aren’t really addressed and to me the novel ended up a little less than it could have been because of that. show less