It is always a good thing to have goals in mind. I should have done this more often, even at the beginning of the year! That way I would have been able to keep track of everything I wanted to do and keep myself in check. A classic example would be my reading goals this month. I aimed for four books to read this August and here I am, a week into reading and I have already finished two! Thanks to the iBooks app on my iPhone, it has helped me read everywhere even in a curved garden bench while waiting for my daughter’s therapy to finish.
The author of five blockbuster novels, Emily Giffin, delivers an unforgettable story of two women, the families that make them who they are, and the longing, loyalty and love that binds them together.
Marian Caldwell is a thirty-six year old television producer, living her dream in New York City. With a fulfilling career and satisfying relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door . . . only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had sealed off forever. From the moment Kirby appears on her doorstep, Marian’s perfectly constructed world—and her very identity—will be shaken to its core, resurrecting ghosts and memories of a passionate young love affair that threaten everything that has come to define her.
For the precocious and determined Kirby, the encounter will spur a process of discovery that ushers her across the threshold of adulthood, forcing her to re-evaluate her family and future in a wise and bittersweet light. As the two women embark on a journey to find the one thing missing in their lives, each will come to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.
My thoughts:
Again, Griffin has her way of presenting characters neither black nor white but all shades of grey. While Marian’s lie/secret was characteristically wrong, you would not be able to hate her for deciding to do it, and yet you understand. I was kept literally glued reading it, as I wanted to find out where Conrad is and how he will react – I kinda get that their summer fling was more than that and it was life-changing. It leaves a bittersweet ending, but one filled with hope. Love this book.