DebJpole Hello all,
So it was my birthday last month and it reminded me that I hadn’t read a book that was given to me by someone very special for my birthday last year! So what better time than to read it now?
For my goodreads followers, you all know that I actually finished this book at the end of May but unfortunately I was ill and life got a bit on top of me but I’m back now!
“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…To be alive is to be vulnerable.l
Madeline L’Engle
This book centres around one family, and a glamorous one at that – The Caseys.
There’s Johnny Casey who is married to Jessie and they have three children together and two from a previous marriage, there’s Ed Casey and his wife Cara and their two children and Liam Casey who has just married Nell and Liam has two children from his previous marriage. And they all spend a lot of time together…
“Now she had no way to alter her feelings, and she had to make sense of them again.”
And I mean, A LOT. From birthday parties and anniversaries to weekends away and family holidays abroad, they do it all together as one big happy family…or at least that’s what Jessie (the mother with the money) insists on.
“Fight today’s war today. Leave tomorrow’s war until tomorrow.”
But not everything is as picture perfect as it seems. The waters are starting to muddy and before long the family members are finding themselves in a sticky situation…Jessie’s self esteem issues, Ferdia’s coming of age, Nell realising her mistakes and Cara dealing with body image and eating disorders. But no one must know these problems exist. To the outside world, this huge family dynamic is perfect.
Until Cara gets injured and gets concussion, but this is the least of her problems when she finds she can’t keep her thoughts to herself and suddenly all the family secrets come tumbling out.
“She was living her life a short distance from herself.”
Now each adult finds themselves asking the same question – isn’t it about time they finally grow up?
“Adulthood, for all its opportunities, meant the simultaneous accumulation of loss. Momentarily the emptiness was unbearable.”
The story has a similar lay out to Big Little Lies. It starts off after Cara’s concussion and the spilling of truths and then rewinds 6 months to before that happened and filled us in on everything that happened up until that moment.
This book certainly isn’t for everyone and I know that it took me a while to get into the book – I don’t think it was until after half way that I really started getting into it, before then it was testing my patience but I know this kind of book is exactly what some readers are looking for.
Ultimately this book shows that appearances can be deceiving and that even though we may look like a graceful swan in day to day life, many of us are like a duck scrabbling away underneath the waves trying to stay afloat. Never judge a book by its cover, everyone is going through something.
“The world would only improve if everyone made an effort.”
You can find this book on Amazon
Until next time,
Keep reading,
D x
