Linda Rosen

I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately, it missed the mark for me.

Oddly enough, I really enjoyed about half of it, when we delved back into the past, into the history of the Roth's and Pearl's. Their relationships felt real and turbulent and I was connected to their story.

It was the other half which lost me.

The main character felt very one-note, only showed one emotion most of the time, selfish and angry, and there was such a focus on "fatness" and "health", I put those in quotations because it felt very disingenuous posing the characters concerns about a teen's weight as a health issue.

The modern time relationships felt a little forced, the introduction of a deadbeat dad felt more like a plot point than a genuine part of the story, and it just didn't fit or push the story forward. I do have to say, I really loved Kate's character. She felt genuine and had such a full life and range of emotions. I would have preferred if she were the focus.

If the author writes more historical fiction, but set wholly in the one time line, I think I would definitely give them another shot.… (meer)

I found the first third of this book to be really enjoyable. The whole mystery surrounding what had happened in this family and the painting and the cameo was really intriguing. I also enjoyed the switching between the 1900s and the 2000s (although I think it could have been done a bit more deftly - please don't make the reader do math with "Eighty six years later.." etc., just put the year!)
However, there was a lot about this book that I didn't enjoy so much. For one thing, Carolyn (the main character in the modern parts) did not read at all like a middle aged woman. She was so incredibly immature and self-absorbed that I could not begin to believe she was that far along in life. She read like a young 20-something. Her mother's death seemed to read like a minor plot point and she really never grieved at all but just moved on to obsessing about Kate. Her storyline was really my biggest annoyance with this book because I just could not stand reading from her point of view and was constantly rolling my eyes at her. The constant references to her "terrible" ex-husband and the man she had an affair with really added nothing at all to the story.
The diabetes part of the story felt so incredibly awkward and shoe-horned in for no real purpose. In places it felt like I was reading a WebMD article on the symptoms of diabetes.
The ending felt very rushed and a bit too convenient. Suddenly our super self-absorbed and immature main character has a revelation in the middle of a dinner where two seconds earlier she was feeling the totally opposite way. There's not really much of any impetus for the change and it felt like the author just decided it was time to wrap it up but didn't know how.
I think this book had a really strong and interesting story at the core (what happened to cause such a rupture in this family) and I liked the idea of switching between past and present and slowly uncovering the mystery, but it just wasn't executed very well.… (meer)