Review: The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell: The Bird family lives in a lovely home in the Cotswolds in England. The four Bird children live what appears to be a charmed childhood being doted on by their mother, Lorelei,  who is a free spirit and delights in celebrating traditions with her family and creating memories. As is often the case, however, all is not as perfect as it appears. Behind the beautifully choreographed Easter egg hunts in the garden and the lovely dinners, is an inability to face anything uncomfortable. Lorelei copes by collecting things and this collecting soon turns to hoarding which slowly smothers this family. With this dysfunction as its backdrop, the family faces a tragedy and the trajectory of each member's life is changed.

Free-spirited Lorelei embraces being a mother and creates a lovely home for her family. She wants them all around her and enjoy nothing more than being home. She fills the walls in their home with the children's art and collects every memento of the passing years for each child. As the children get a little older, however, they want to spread their wings to a live outside the home; in response, Lorelei clings all the harder to them and adds more things to her "collection" - of course, all this stuff becomes a wedge between her and the family and only drives them further away.

My Thoughts
Hoarding is an uncomfortable topic - it is hard to imagine how someone could let things get so out of control.  Of course, it is not unlike many other addictions and beneath the compulsion is a person who is hurting and trying to fill a void. With this in mind, I felt much sympathy for Lorelei and even found her progression  from collecting to hoarding fascinating.  Thankfully, however, this book was not only about Lorelei and her hoarding.

The real story of the book is the ripple effect of dysfunction through this family. Chapter by chapter, the author reveals a little more about each of the children through the years into adulthood and about each of the parents. Between the impact of growing up in this home that slowly closed in on them and the horrible tragedy they all face one Easter, each family member had their fair share of issues to deal with and you see the effects of all that play out in their adult lives.

This book is compelling and I found myself hungrily reading to see what happens with each character.  Although not everyone has grown up with a hoarder, most face their own versions of family dysfunction in whatever degree. The family drama makes this book relatable while the degree and eccentricity this family faces makes it fascinating.  Highly recommend.

Review: Love, Water, Memory by Jennie Shortridge

In Love Water Memory by Jennie Shortridge, we meet Lucie Walker as she is coming to awareness that she is in a body of water and has no idea how she arrived there. It quickly becomes clear that Lucie has had a break with reality and now has no memory - she doesn't know her identity nor how she arrived in the San Francisco Bay. When she is finally reunited with her fiance, Grady and returns with him to Seattle, Lucie's immediate history begins to reveal itself but there are obviously secrets and pain in her childhood unknown to both her and her fiance. With her old self now a stranger to her, can Lucie, or more importantly, Grady make peace with the person that has emerged?

 Prior to her break, Lucie Walker is an extremely well put together but guarded person. She can be curt and intense and is rare to show emotion. With an extensive collection of makeup and expensive clothes and accessories, Lucie wears it all as armor behind which she hides. As her wedding plans with Grady intensify and they begin to argue, Lucie suddenly flees after a particularly bad fight. She is missing for days and then comes to in the San Francisco Bay without any memory whatsoever. When Grady is finally reunited with her, he learns her memory loss has been diagnosed as a dissociative fugue and that it is generally associated with severe emotional trauma. This prompts Grady to reflect on how little he knows of Lucie's history and childhood. Meanwhile, the new Lucie is a stripped down version of her old self - the armor is gone and Lucie is much more real than she was before losing her memory. Interestingly, she now yearns for connections to others - especially family - wheareas the old Lucie thrived on independence and shunned Grady's family. Lucie begins to not like what she learns about who she used to be and knows she must seek to understand what caused her to be that person.

 My Thoughts
Before I started blogging, I read Eating Heaven by Jennie Shortridge and remember being very affected by the book and struck by how well the author hit on emotions subtly with words. Fortunately, I found more of the same in Love, Water, Memory. Lucie is a tightly wound clock and after the incident she is unwound bit by bit. The author expertly reveals the emotional damage suffered by Lucie.

As much as this book is about Lucie and her history, it is also about Grady and his history. Although not as traumatic as Lucie's, it has certainly shaped him in interesting ways and adds a dynamic to his relationship with both old and new Lucie.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it gave me a lot to think about - especially about the armors we wear and what they are (or are attempting to) shield from the world. They do an inadequate job of dealing with past hurts - the only way to be free of those is to deal with them.  Highly recommend this book!

This book is the She Reads selection for January - you can find other reviews here 

The Girl You Left Behind by Jo Jo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind by Jo Jo Moyes: Sophie LeFevre's husband, Edouard, is fighting for France at the front of World War I; Sophie has been left behind in the small town of St. Peronne which has been occupied by the Germans. A Kommandant is taken by Sophie and the painting the artist  Edouard had made of her which hangs in her home and reminds her of life before the War. When that painting surfaces almost one hundred years later in the home of Liv Halston, an international scandal erupts and thrusts everyone into the limelight. Although long since deceased, Sophie also takes center stage and her story is told.

 Liv Halston was given the painting "The Girl You Left Behind" by her husband, David. When he dies suddenly, Liv is left as a young widow and she clutches everything that connects her to her late husband. She lives in the fantastic "Glass House" that was custom built by David, an architect. Each feature in the home reminds her of David, his brilliance and what she has lost. "The Girl You Left Behind" also reminds her of happy times with David and she develops a connection with its subject, Sophie. When the LeFevre family engages the services of a firm to recover the painting missing from Edouard's collection, they contact Liv and inform her she is in possession of a painting that was illegitimately obtained during the War. The family wants restitution but Liv cannot let go of one of her last connections to David - or to Sophie.

My Thoughts
I found this book completely engrossing. It is told alternately from Sophie and then Liv's point of view and I think the movement between contemporary and historical fiction was well balanced and served to keep the story moving. The author successfully creates two very sypathetic characters in Sophie and Liv - they are both dealing with tremendous grief and loss but they are also complicated and don't always make predictable, stereotypical choices. They are linked by the painting and they both hold on to it in an effort to connect to what they have lost.

The story extends much beyond just Liv and Sophie - each of their storylines are filled with interesting characters and subplots to make this a multilayered novel which pulls you in. In addition, there is the controversy over works of art with questionable provenace and what the current owners owe the descendants of the true owners. All of this together makes for a story I won't soon forget.

I received an e-ARC via netgalley. Shereads.org is currently offering a giveaway for a book bundle from the author - enter here. 

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

In The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, we meet three women who casually know each other but whose lives are actually quite entwined. We watch their lives collide as the story unfolds and see what each woman's limit is for forgiveness and how much they are willing to endure to keep their families intact.

Tess Curtis has recently learned that her husband and her cousin are in love and want to pursue their relationship. Tess considered her cousin her best friend and trusted her implicitly so she feels "had" by both of them and regrets not looking closer at their growing relationship. She takes their young son and returns to her mother's home in Sydney to gather herself after the shocking news. She is surprised to run into her ex-boyfriend, Conor Whitby, when she enrolls her young son at the local school.

Rachel Crowley's seventeen year old daughter was murdered twenty years ago and Rachel is still haunted by the fact that her murder was never solved. Hardened by her grief, Rachel continues to pursue her own theories of who killed her daughter. She firmly believes Conor Whitby killed her daughter and as she faces the fact that her son is taking her only joy, her grandson, all the way to New York City, Rachel's need to see Conor pay becomes fervent.

Cecilia Fitzpatrick is an uber-mother - she heads all PTA activities, runs a successful business selling Tupperware and never appears anywhere about town or at her children's school with even a hair out of place. Her polish is appealing if a bit intimidating. When she discovers a letter addressed to her by her husband instructing her to read it in the event of his death, she is perplexed. She becomes even more perplexed when she mentions her discovery to her husband and he reacts strangely. Cecilia can't resist the temptation and ultimately opens the letter; the letter is the catalyst for the collision of the women's lives and where they discover how they are connected.

  My Thoughts
The Husband's Secret is a wonderfully enjoyable read. We learn about each of the women and the crisis they are facing before we finally see the secret revealed - in fact, the secret is not revealed until well into the book. The story is alternately told from each of the woman's point of view and the reader gets to know to know them and understand what they face.

The author does an excellent job of walking the fine line of telling a serious story and creating a "light read".  There were many funny moments in the book but enough meat to make it a story you really want to settle in with for an afternoon. I will definitely be looking for other books by the author.

I received a copy of this book at BEA 2013.