This is an astoundingly good debut novel. It is a family saga spanning fifty years in the Sorenson family with David, Marilyn and their four daughters: Wendy, Violet, Liza and Grace. Claire Lombardo seamlessly transitions from their marriage in the 1970s to the present, giving a full chronicle of the family both individually and as a whole. Each of the daughters has challenges, disappointments and life-altering moments, which make them very real and understandable in terms of the marital/family/sibling dynamics. My only disappointment with this novel is that it had to end.
It's really hard to believe that âThe Most Fun We Ever Had' is a debut novel. This big, chewy, multi-generational tale rings so true, handles multiple characters so deftly, and moves back and forth through its own history with such assurance that one would expect Lombardo to have half a dozen practice runs under her belt. But she has, as it were, burst out of the starting gate full out, and sustains this complex story with verve and finesse to the finish line in fine style.
At 500-plus pages, the story never drags. Lombardo may be forgiven for plopping each of the main characters into a life-changing crisis at more or less the same time, because it's so engaging to watch them work things out as part of a big family with often divided loyalties but a bedrock unity that springs from the remarkable 40-year love story of their parents, David and Marilyn.
Only Wendy, the eldest of the four Sorenson sisters, feels a bit contrived and is frankly unlikeable through most of the book. The reader may or may not feel Wendy's betrayal of her next-youngest sister Violet is justifiable, once the underlying story unfolds.
Settle in with this one.
At 500-plus pages, the story never drags. Lombardo may be forgiven for plopping each of the main characters into a life-changing crisis at more or less the same time, because it's so engaging to watch them work things out as part of a big family with often divided loyalties but a bedrock unity that springs from the remarkable 40-year love story of their parents, David and Marilyn.
Only Wendy, the eldest of the four Sorenson sisters, feels a bit contrived and is frankly unlikeable through most of the book. The reader may or may not feel Wendy's betrayal of her next-youngest sister Violet is justifiable, once the underlying story unfolds.
Settle in with this one.
