2.75 stars. overall this was alright, it was written well enough to have me want to keep reading. what didn't quite work for me was the tension in the story - it felt too manufactured. the characters had to behave outside of character for the tension to work, and it was made a bigger deal than it would have been in "real life" for the sake of the story, so that fell flat for me.

the characters were all people i'd like to be friends with. which is great, but they all did the right thing, basically all the time. there wasn't a satisfying arc happening for any of them.

i didn't really like the way she wrote about adoption. she used the language "give up" all the time when talking about placing a baby for adoption. she made it kind of a social faux pax, as if there's something wrong with placing a child. sort of. not really; the mistakes she made weren't purposeful soapboxing, but the implication is sometimes there.

i also really didn't like the way she also strongly implies that every woman has a mothering instinct or something is wrong with them. so nan not wanting or liking children from the beginning has to be about something more than that she simply doesn't like or want children. i don't know if werlinger intentionally is saying something about women and mothering here, but like with the adoption stuff, i don't like the implication (and it's even stronger here).

all of that, and i still enjoyed reading this. it's well written - the monsoon metaphor is carried through quite nicely - and was a nice easy read. it's not fantastic, definitely not perfect, but shows promise. i'd read her again. ( )