I hated everything about the first 2/3 of this book, and then I realized how helpful a book like this would be to somebody dealing with the loss of a loved one. And then I realized that everybody in the world has to deal with that at some point, so I'm making a new bookshelf/tag "grief and loss" and will probably come back and re-read this when I need it, and most likely will award it a few more stars then.
So this story is a first novel, about young Ruby Bronstein and her family: American mom, Holocaust surviving dad, and three older brothers. The story is rife with cliffhangers, and there are some minor inconsistencies, but mostly it's incredibly awful all the bad things that happen to this poor family. With each subsequent tragedy, Ruby internalizes further, and heavily shellacs another hard-shelled candy coating onto her interior exterior.
The thing I hated most about the first 2/3 of this book was the humorlessness of it, all the jokes fell flat to me but then in the last third, when I was aware of the consequences resulting from Ruby's not dealing with her grief and as I was anticipating the healing that she was finally about to undergo, then the writing seemed to get so way much better.
So this story is a first novel, about young Ruby Bronstein and her family: American mom, Holocaust surviving dad, and three older brothers. The story is rife with cliffhangers, and there are some minor inconsistencies, but mostly it's incredibly awful all the bad things that happen to this poor family. With each subsequent tragedy, Ruby internalizes further, and heavily shellacs another hard-shelled candy coating onto her interior exterior.
The thing I hated most about the first 2/3 of this book was the humorlessness of it, all the jokes fell flat to me but then in the last third, when I was aware of the consequences resulting from Ruby's not dealing with her grief and as I was anticipating the healing that she was finally about to undergo, then the writing seemed to get so way much better.
