really, really enjoyed this relationship drama which is the story of the unravelling of Adam and Bethsyear marriage,
At the start of the book Beth is at her lowest ebb, seeing a therapist and coming to terms with the hurt that Adam has caused her.
This is the second time he has broken her heart and she is in no mood to forgive and forget, She wants to move on in her life,
Daughter Meg is firmly in her mothers corner, She feels just as betrayed and is finding it very hard to have anything to do with her father at the start of the read,
Much as I liked Beth and Meg, I loved the character of Adam, At the start of the read I really hated him, He was so selfish and really just thinking with his dk, wanting to have his cake and eat it, I could have punched him on more than occasion, He wants to try again with Beth and he really cannot understand why she is so reluctant, Here we have a character who has spent years keeping secrets from the people he loved, he says he is protecting them from the truth but is he really only protecting himself from the fallout that would follow by revealing the truth not only about himself, but long hidden family secrets Throughout the book those secrets are going to come out.
All his pigeons are going to come home to roost and there is going to be a lot of heartache ahead for Adam, Beth and Meg.
It is a book that is certainly not predictable, is full of surprises with a lot of drama and heartache as well as some good times.
I loved reading about these characters, Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy,
You, Me and Other People is the lifeaffirming, heartbreaking and ultimately stunning debut novel from Fionnuala Kearney,
They Say Every Family Has Skeletons In Their Closet, . .
But what happens when you open the door and they wont stop tumbling out
For Adam and Beth the first secret wasnt the last, it was just the beginning.
You think you can imagine the worst thing that could happen to your family, but there are some secrets that change everything, And then the question is, how can you piece together a future when your past is being rewritten
For fans of Liane Moriarty, Jojo Moyes and David Nicholls.
Beth and Adam have parted ways, Not in an amicable way either, Beth discovers Adam has cheated on her, for the second time, and has had enough, Their daughter Meg, is away at University and Beth just cannot take the lies and deceit anymore, She struggles to move on from their breakup as she doesn't know herself as a single unit, just as a wife and a mother, Rattling around her marital home, she wonders if, by kicking Adam out, has she done the right thing, Was a it a knee jerk reaction to his affair Can she forgive and forget Can she manage without him
Adam, meanwhile, is struggling to come to terms with the breakup himself.
The novelty of a younger woman, sex on tap and a bachelor life is not as appealing as one would think, He misses the home comforts and the magnitude of his dalliance is swallowing him up, Things are even about to get worse, as an unexpected phone call causes more secrets to
come to the surface, and spill into his life, Things couldn't get worse, or could they
Fionnuala Kearney has written a novel that began so realistically that I felt I was right there beside Beth, almost immediately.
The writing is so subtle that you find yourself lost in the world of this family from beginning to end, Beth seems to be a representation of a large percent of women over forty, who have done the major child rearing, picked the dream home and decorated it to within an inch of its life, all while supporting their husbands in a quasi cheerleading way.
A stay at home mother who has a hobby or a 'calling' in this case, song writing, which occasionally brings home some money, means that Beth has been cocooned in this suburban world, with a kind of separation from reality.
Firmly convinced of her husband's adoration, she never suspects he would play away from home again and her world shatters in one foul swoop, Their daughter, nineteen year old Meg, is also devastated by her father's infidelity and she lays on the guilt trip in a heavy handed way, Also gunning for Adam's demise is Karen, Beth's best friend and confident throughout the whole ordeal, Even Adam's younger brother, Ben, is horrified at his sibling's behaviour, All in all, Adam is not popular, With anyone. While we read of his feeling lost and alone, it is hard to feel any sympathy for the creator of his own hard luck,
All through the book, there are little clues to a more uneven past than Beth could imagine, Like chinks of light through uneven floorboards, there is enough to warrant further investigation into the murky darkness, but with the knowledge that you may not like what you find.
Secrets and lies. Who are they usually to protect The liar, or the people who trust them
This debut caused me to basically miss a whole day with my family.
I knew by the third page that I was hooked and that there was no point in putting it down, I read straight through, until my eyes were unable to fight the good fight anymore, but only with the knowledge that it was the weekend and I could pick up the baton nice and early the next day.
A clever look at human nature, the differences between men and women and the dynamics of the 'average' family, We all have boxes in the attic, labelled and forgotten, How many of us have secrets that we hope remained labelled and forgotten More, I expect, that you would think, . .
Highly recommended, Ideal for fans of Jojo Moyes and Diane Chamberlain,
THEY SAY EVERY FAMILY HAS SKELETONS IN THEIR CLOSET, . .
But what happens when you open the door and they wont stop tumbling out
For Adam and Beth the first secret wasnt the last, it was just the beginning.
You think you can imagine the worst thing that could happen to your family, but there are some secrets that change everything,
And then the question is, how can you piece together a future when your past is being rewritten
To be honest I chose to review this book based on the fact that I liked the cover, shallow I know.
But sometimes a cover can really make you want to read a book and this is what happened to me,
To begin with I thought this was going to be a bit of a pedestrian book with the usual husband cheats, wife finds out etc.
Then I got drawn into the wonderful layers that this book has, the insightful writing which just called out to me, yes, this is what it is like, this is what happens in real life.
But then other layers began to peel back, there was more than one story here, more than one lie, There is so much more to this book than one storyline and the characters really began to feel real to me, With the book being told from two perspectives, it also wasn't easy to hate the wrong doer as you saw it through his eyes too,
If I had one criticism it was that I got so engrossed that when each chapter ended and another began it wasn't immediately obvious whose voice was narrating.
It did alternate across the chapters, but when you are really into a book, you aren't thinking, one character just narrated so now it will be the turn of the other one.
A great read and even a little teary eyed in places,
My thanks go to Netgalley and HarperFiction for a free e review copy of this book,
I love cheating stories and this one had cheating in Spades, It's a sickness, I know, but I can't get enough of these stories,
Adam was such a selfish prick, He cheated on his wife until he got caught, then he left his wife and his home, and alienated his daughter, all because he could not stop keep his dick in his pants and his hands off from the homewrecking slut he took up with.
Beth didn't hesitate to kick Adam out, This was his second strike in the cheating world and she didn't give him another chance for a strike three, The marriage falls apart, the divorce is imminent, and both Adam and Beth are forced to move on with their lives alone, The entire story through this couple's separation, devastation and heartbreak, all felt truly realistic, Then all the lies came to light and truths were discovered, and Adam's world plummets even further into destruction, The entire story felt honest and sad, and left me a little melancholy, but it all felt entirely real, I enjoyed the entire story, and as well as all the emotions this story wrung out of me,
Es una historia tan real y los personajes son tan profundos que no puedes evitar sentir empatía por ellos, Con este libro reí, lloré, me enojé sentí de todo,
Lo recomendaría Sí! Considerando que esta es la novela debut de Fionnuala Kearney, me parece un trabajo muy bien hecho, En general me mantuvo bastante interesada en la historia y aunque no estuve en suspenso todo el tiempo, no cualquiera puede generar ese nivel de empatía con sus personajes.
Te lo recomiendo como lectura de descanso después de un libro complicado o cuando tienes ganas de una lectura ligera, This is a book about a selfish man who cheats on his wife with two different women and then wants to blame it all on his dead parents and his childhood, his parents didn't love him and they left so now his wife doesn't love him and she leaves.
How about about if you cheat repeatably on you wife she is probably going to leave you, Who is it actually who is doing the leaving, he created this situation, The wife at one point is in therapy to deal with her cheating husband and she is talking about trying to forgive her husband, problem is he is still cheating and she knows this.
How can you forgive someone who is currently committing the act There is one too many revelations after another in this book, It makes you wonder what next I did finish the book, .
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Fionnuala Kearney