Helpful Score: 1
Never really got "into" this book. Only finished it because I rarely give up on a book. Cecelia is a 13 YO who runs into some trouble with her NYC classmates because she divulged one of their secrets to keep them from harm. Her free-style parents send her to her grandmother's in a small town to go to school. Astrid, grandmother, is a widow who is emotionally distant from her three grown children and now reassessing her parenting and her lifestyle. Strange, self centered characters. However, interesting character development of Cecelia and the angsts of a young teenager and all that's involved in growing up in recent times.
Started off slow for me. Straub's books always seem to??? I think it takes awhile to get into the characters and the stories and she develops these characters with little bits of information as the book continues. By the midway point I liked it enough to keep reading and by the end I loved it. This is a family story of the mother, her girlfriend, her three adult children and their lives and her teenage granddaughter. I loved the message and story that no one is perfect and we are all doing our best. That is true of life and of parenting.
