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Rating:
Summary: Ordinary
Review: Ordinary writing, ordinary plot. Just like a thousand other books published every year.

Rating:
Summary: An old theme, handled well.
Review: The book is about a romantic marriage in which one spouse thinks he is marrying above himself, and the other worries she is marrying below herself. Four of the characters are narrators, the married couple, his mother and a spinster cousin. The mother imagines discussing her problems with people like Oprah and Joyce Brothers, and very different versions of their answers. The book has a good plot line, humour, interesting people, both the primary and secondary characters, and does an enjoyable job with small town life. Most of all, the book explores its main theme with honesty, and even subtlety and depth, without ever losing its light touch. Both spouses are in fact good enough for each other. This is a very enjoyable book. For me, it suffers a little from a pat ending.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing read, but relies a bit too much on stereotypes
Review: This was a thoroughly enjoyable book, with a lyrical writing style & subtle plot development. Events that would not otherwise be compelling are, under the author's deft touch. However, the character lines differentiating the big city sophisticate from the little town hicks were just a little too pat, with an overreliance on tired small -town-inhabitant stereotyping. The author was the most successful at demonstrating Danny's complexity of character, despite his relatively banal existence, and nicely outlined the starkness of historical events that can underlie a "simple country upbringing". However, there were many (omitted) parts of this story, tantalizing glimpses of happenings about which I would have loved to read. How did Lydia break her engagement and part from her family? What was Rex really all about? What happened in the year after Lydia left? The author's treatment of other delicious family conflicts left me interested in how she would have treated the ones she left out.

The racism angle was not terribly believable as it was written, either, with the exception of a hearbreaking encounter between Kyle and some unemployed black men. Small town racism is much more ingrained, and less superficial than illustrated here. Inhabitants of this type of environment, even the kindest old grannies, use the n-word as unselfconsciously as if they were speaking of their favorite cornbread recipe. It is horrifying, depressing, and at the same time unremarkable. Unquestioning acceptance of virulent racism by regular people is far more compelling and real than is having those characters be so "bad" in other ways that their racism is expected, and therefore almost excused. It's just one more feature of their already repellent personalities, right? This is almost a cop-out, as if the author felt compelled to show that the person was bad in other ways than their racism.

Still, in total the story was difficult to put down, and the characters stay with you long after you finish it. I hope to read more of this author's books.