Joyce Maynard

[Count the Ways] is the story of a family - first a lost one, then a made one, then a shattered one, and then - maybe - a mended one. The focus is on Eleanor who loses her parents when she is a teenager, not that it was much of a loss. Her parents had time and attention only for each other, with Eleanor always the outsider. What she wants most in the world is a family, and she gets it. She falls in love with Cam, and they live a hippie-ish sort of life on a farm in New Hampshire, where their show more three children are born. It's an idyllic existence as far as Eleanor is concerned, and it should be mentioned here that the sense of place in this novel is beautifully written; the farm becomes a character almost as important as the people.

Told in short chapters, [Count the Ways] charts the family's progress through the years with all the usual highs and lows of life, plus one truly terrible event. Through it all, Eleanor remains wholely focused on her children, to the detriment of her marriage (the reverse of her parents, essentially). As the family unit starts to break down, Eleanor is forced to question the weight of so much love and attention and the harm it can do. She is a frustrating character (as is Cam), but she seemed very real to me. Ultimately, this is the story of a lonely woman, I think.

I had a small quibble with the ending that lost the book a quarter of a star.

I borrowed this book from the library because I won a copy of its follow-up from the Early Reviewers program. I very much look forward to reading it soon to see if Maynard can recapture the intricacies and complexities of this family.

4.25 stars

"Who knew what they'd remember, and what they'd make of it, but the hope was there that if nothing else, what they would hold on to from these times was the knowledge of being deeply loved. You showed your children the world. It was up to them to determine what they'd make of it." (p. 98)

"Maybe loving her children too much was her downfall - the weight it placed on the three of them, knowing that for their mother they represented everything of greatest meaning in her life. No question their father loved them, too, but without the heavy sense of obligation her devotion seemed to carry with it." (p. 298) show less

This is the story of a marriage, the family created by that marriage, and their collective joys and sorrows. Eleanor was the child of two self-centered people poorly suited to parenthood. When Eleanor was in her teens, both parents died suddenly. While this left her scarred, it also enabled her to grow in new ways. At 20 she met Cam; together they turned an old New England farmhouse into a home, and children soon followed. But so did stress and hardship, and their relationship began to fray show more at the edges. A tragic event tore the family apart; the rest of the novel describes their personal journeys over the next 20 years or so.

Eleanor and Cam were both flawed and realistic characters. Most writers would portray one character as the better half, but Joyce Maynard showed readers the ways each of them were simultaneously committed to the family and contributing to its dysfunction. Some parts of the story came perilously close to my own memories, regrets, and fears. The story touched me on an emotional level that made me rate this book highly despite a few plot and editorial issues. show less

Probably closer to a 4.5 stars
From the beginning of this tightly plotted story there's an impending sense of doom. The book starts off when Helen glimpses Ava in the back of a taxi. Ava is an old friend that she hasn't seen in years and the sighting sends her down memory lane to the events that led to the end of their friendship.

Helen was a lost soul when she met Ava. She was badly parented, divorced, and had recently lost custody of her young son. Ava and Swift are wealthy philanthropists show more who take an interest in Helen and soon she's under their spell. Under their influence. She had never been part of a loving family and when she met Ava, the promise of love, acceptance, and support, along with their lavish lifestyle, was difficult to resist.

There were moments I wanted to reach through the pages and shake some sense into Helen. It's so easy to judge flawed, vulnerable people if you haven't walked in their shoes, but I felt nothing but sympathy for her. It's a complicated story that makes you think long and hard about serious topics.

The ending.....well, I was holding my breath, and while it ended suddenly, I wrote the ending I wanted in my mind :)

Maynard has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Her writing is deceptively simple yet filled with nuance and depth - the mark of a great author. This was my second book by her and it won't be my last. show less

I'm not sure what to say about this. It's a well-written book that kept me reading, but lord, the main character is a glutton for punishment. I like the fact that there's a character who is the victim of physical domestic abuse, and the main character, Eleanor, keeps telling her she has to leave her husband for her own safety while Eleanor herself is emotionally pummeled by her family and never gives up loving and helping them. So Maynard is showing that there are many forms of domestic show more abuse while working to canonize this mother-martyr. Well, she's not a complete martyr, her art takes her places and, since this is an American book we can hope for a good ending, but sheesh, is this what we expect of "good" mothers? show less