Wow.
I was on the waiting list for this book for several months. Yes you read that right. Months! Now I know why it has been so popular!
If you haven't read this gem of a story, I highly recommend it! Now I want to look for her first novel at the library when I return this one!
STORY SUMMARY
Shaker Heights is a posh, upscale suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Everything appears perfect there and everything is planned to the max....from the lawns, to the roads, to the colors of the houses. Even the lives of the residents seem to be all planned out.
One family who really portrays these characteristics is the Richardson Family. They live in a large house on Parkland Drive. Bill (Dad) is a lawyer and Elena (Mom) is a journalist for the local paper. Their oldest daughter is Lexi, a senior, followed by Trip, their oldest son, a junior. Moody is a sophomore and Izzy (short for Isabelle) is a freshman and sometimes seemed far different from her brothers and sister.
When their rental home located on Winslow Street is leased by a single mom (Mia Warren) and her teenage daughter Pearl, their lives begin to change. Pearl and her mother rent out one side of the duplex and Mr Yang a single Asian man rents out the other half. It's where the Richardson family had first begun, when Bill and Elena were newlyweds.
Pearl is fascinated by the Richardson family...she and Moody become very close friends and she develops a crush on Trip.
Izzy develops a "crush" on Mia and wants to spend every afternoon after school at the Warren home. Mia decides that Izzy can help her with her work. Mia is an artist/photographer. She and Pearl never really stay long in any one town and have lived all over the US. But this time, Mia has promised Pearl that they can put down roots here in Shaker Heights. Mia, when she has some really good photos, sells them in an art gallery run by her old friend Anita in NYC. She met Anita through one of her college professors, who happened to be a very famous photographer named Pauline Hawthorne who died of brain cancer the year Pearl was born.
However, Mia has a mysterious past and doesn't care about upsetting the "status quo" of this carefully planned out community. This seems to bother Elena a great deal. Mia is kind, hard-working,compassionate, fun, and very talented with her camera. Pearl is genuine, honest, and kind as well. She has never met her father and doesn't know anything about him. She and Mia are very close.
Things start to really get shaken up in the community when some old friends of the Richardsons (the McColloughs) decide to adopt a Chinese baby girl who was left at the fire station a few months before. The baby (May Ling a.k.a. Mirabelle) is the daughter of a single girl named Bebe Chow who happens to be a waitress in the same restaurant where Mia has a part time job. Bebe decides she wants her baby back, and the ensuing custody battle begins to divide the town....and the Richardsons. Elena becomes suspicious of Mia's motives for being on Bebe's side so begins to dig into Mia's past.
And then one day Moody and Pearl are on a field trip in an a Cleveland art museum and there they discover a photograph worth hundreds of dollars. The photo is of Mia and Pearl as a newborn!
Why is the photo hanging there? What information will this photo provide to Elena?
Elena is determined to uncover the secrets to Mia's past. And in doing so, she will wreak havoc on many lives.....causing disruptions and chaos and angst even among her own family.
MY THOUGHTS
The book opens in the future, goes to the present, and has the back stories of Elena and Mia folded in among the present chapters. The back stories are very important to pay attention to, especially Mia's.
This book is powerful.
It touches on many themes, the main one being motherhood....along with art and identity. And just what is art. It also touches on the heaviness of secrets.
The story includes other issues such as post -partum depression, abortion, teenage s*x, abandonment, surrogate motherhood, and the harm in thinking that always following the rules can avoid disasters. It's about emotional and verbal abuse as well.
The book is a wonderful story of the mother-daughter relationship (as seen in Mia and Pearl) and the stress of trying to live "perfect" lives (as seen in the Richardson family).
It touches on familial strings as well as the knots of friendships.
It's also a "coming of age" type of story with so many of the children in the book.
It breathes about the very strong pull of motherhood and what we will do to protect our children.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.
1 comment:
This is on my to read list at the library. I should check to see the waiting list and if it's that long here too I best get my name on it.
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