This book was well written with plenty of thought put into the plights of the characters, carefully mapping out how each responds to the emotional situations they find themselves in, considering each persons needs and desires. With that said, this wasnt the book for me. I found the pacing of the story extremely slow (and for someone who adores Ken Folletts Pillars of the Earth, the pacing must be pretty slow). Also, I saw very little character growth for any of the characters from the time Anita comes into their lives fastforwarded 10 years to the wedding of Lenny and Anita. Ben went off to college, to Europe and comes back at age 27. Didnt he have adventures? Romances? Heartbreak? But he appears to be the same as he was at age 17 when Anita first came into his life. Also, Anita seems to have very little growth. While I found her story line the most interesting, I was left feeling that all she did for 10 years was watch questionable TV and keep Lenny happy in bed. I think if the storyline was compressed over a 3-4 year span, this lack of character growth wouldnt have bugged me as it did.
With that criticism, if you have an interest in child-parent relations when there is a divorce and a new, younger significant other takes the place of one parent, then this book might be of great interest to you. There was also that side tragedy of Natashas illness (which Lenny managed to hide from Ben for 10-12 years). I definitely understood Bens mix of emotions when he finally found out deep sadness, betrayal (why didnt his dad trust him with this news much earlier?). If you read the blurb on Goodreads for this book, you will see that a tape recorder with the recorded innermost thoughts of the main characters plays a key role in the story. However, this tape recorder doesnt really come into play until the reader is perhaps 75% of the way through the book. So, its significance seemed rather minor to me, as compared the Natashas piano.
While this book was not the book for me, I am not turned off of Uvi Poznanskys works and will look forward to checking out further works from her. Her care in plotting and setting up characters was evident in this book, even if the subject didnt move me.
With that criticism, if you have an interest in child-parent relations when there is a divorce and a new, younger significant other takes the place of one parent, then this book might be of great interest to you. There was also that side tragedy of Natashas illness (which Lenny managed to hide from Ben for 10-12 years). I definitely understood Bens mix of emotions when he finally found out deep sadness, betrayal (why didnt his dad trust him with this news much earlier?). If you read the blurb on Goodreads for this book, you will see that a tape recorder with the recorded innermost thoughts of the main characters plays a key role in the story. However, this tape recorder doesnt really come into play until the reader is perhaps 75% of the way through the book. So, its significance seemed rather minor to me, as compared the Natashas piano.
While this book was not the book for me, I am not turned off of Uvi Poznanskys works and will look forward to checking out further works from her. Her care in plotting and setting up characters was evident in this book, even if the subject didnt move me.
