varunanchan

A book club friend lent this to me. It's interesting, but pretty heavy. I see that I was right for rejecting her first book, "Hannah's Gift," as too potentially depressing. Even the brief passages describing Hannah's death in this book started me sobbing; I certainly couldn't have read an entire book about that. Her description of her marriage's apparent demise is also pretty depressing. All in all, the writing is good but the subject matter is a downer. I'll probably finish it, but I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it, exactly. On a more positive note, her writing on the topic of gradually realizing the need to accept herself as a mother and not strive for perfection in other mothers' eyes rang eerily true for me, and I imagine, would for many other mothers as well. OK -- I finished it now. I can't decide whether she's incredibly selfish or incredibly courageous. It's certainly interesting to ponder the question of whether it's wrong for a mother to [spoiler warning] leave her children in her husband's custody after their divorce and follow her artistic dreams, if the husband can give the children a more stable life. The picture of her marriage was clearly skewed; although her husband seems like this impossible perfectionist, maybe she was actually a lazy slob? And now, she and her second husband maintain separate residences -- does that mean no one can live with her?

2022-11-14 18:25