Any Bitter Thing

Monica Wood never disappoints. Her easy prose serves her difficult issues extremely well, and while we may be lulled into a sense of security that we really know what's going on, Ms. Wood slyly pitches us a surprise curve at which we swing and miss every time.

Lizzy is orphaned very early in life and her uncle, a Catholic priest, takes over custody and raises the little girl while also tending to his parishoners. The resentful busybody of a housekeeper thinks she sees something untoward, and Father Mike must go away and never see Lizzy again. One thing I really love about this book is that a child services counselor, in her determination to find something wrong, is one of the villainesses.

I think I prefer "My Only Story" among Ms. show more Wood's work; but as I say, Ms. Wood never disappoints. She deals with issues arising from family crises supremely well. Her characters, major and minor, are full, understandable, and well-shaded. She reliably rewards her readers, and I look forward to getting through all her work.

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One of my top reads this year. A poignant story, with well developed characters, and a plot line that has you sitting on the edge of the chair, convinced that something is not being said. The ending doesn't disappoint.

Essentially this is the story of a woman, orphaned at age 2, raised by her uncle, who happened to be a priest, and their subsequent loss of each other. Her adult quest to fit together missing pieces of her life is extraordinarily written..it could so easily have become a daytime soap, but isn't. Rather it is a quiet, believable, compelling story that makes it my first 'couldn't put it down' of the year.

The book begins with a young woman named Lizzy being hit by a teenage driver while jogging. Her sense of awareness during the time she is left on the road, found by a driver, and the time she is in the hospital leaves her convinced of one thing in particular -- she saw her deceased uncle, Father Mike (a Catholic priest), who raised her after her parents death when she was a small child. In her search to find someone who'll believe in her, she has to confront her troubled marriage, her relationship with her best friend, and she must revisit her childhood in a way she never could before. The book is full of twists and turns that leave the reader reeling and thinking. I loved it.

I really loved this. Wood writes about people I want to know more about---they are appealing characters and the intertwining of the events that occur to and with them are just so well done!

This book is beautifully written. After her accident, the main character has to try to piece together the puzzle of her life, including things that she never examined very closely. The book has real tragedy in it, and many adults that had no idea what to do with a child in her situation. Reading the story as it unfolds is like opening a very special gift. I highly recommend it.

The novel starts with Lizzy's accident, a hit and run, she mentions it is her memory. Then we go back in time to when she went to live with her uncle, Father Mike. The novel is written in the past, switching from Lizzy's childhood and her recent memories after her accident. It also takes us back to Lizzy's childhood to Father Mike's point of view, but told in the third person. All this moving back and forth and from person to person may sound confusing, but it is done very skillfully and seamlessly, you are not really jumping around, just kind of flowing with the movement. As Lizzy moves toward the truth, there are some twists and surprises, one that I did not expect at all, yet it all seemed to fit. I enjoyed this book and recommend it.

I didn't want to like this book, but I do. It's a great story-- the beginning is tender and heartbreaking, and it turns by the end into a rousing good story. Well-crafted and very moving.