Rating: 
Summary: Hits close to home...
Review: As a "many-years-married" woman, this book hit very close to home. Morsi accurately portrays the ebb and flow of a long marriage. She puts everything out there, warts and all. Don't expect a light-weight comedy from this one. It will bring a tear to your eye. I liked the format of the book especially. In a practical sense, the short chapters alternating between characters, made it easy to come to a stopping point when your reading time gets interrupted by the daily grind.
Rating:
Summary: *****
Review: Being a huge fan of Moresi, I was excited to read Suburban Renewal. Again, she has created a page turner until the end. Suburban Renewal introduces you to Corrie and her husband Sam. After 25 years of marriage, we peek into their morning routine of coffee and reading the paper. Without waring, Corrie brings up the "D" word ~ divorce. Like no other novel that I have had the pleasure of reading, Moresi takes us back 25 years prior to when the couple first meets and falls in love. We learn the struggles that Corrie & Sam have to deal with over the years which begin with teenage pregnancy. Corrie's mother does not approve of Sam and is ashamed of her careless daughter. Corrie and Sam choose to get married and have their daughter, Lauren. With little money, the couple moves into a garage apartment and try to make ends meet. Corrie's mother is trying to swallow the choices that she has made until she learns that Corrie is pregnant with her second child. Suburban Renewal is filled with Corrie & Sam's struggles - from his father coming back into his life, raising teenagers, unemployment, AIDS and suicide. One aspect of Moresi's writing that I love is that her stories are not happy from the beginning to the end. Meaning, they are true to life and the struggles that we endure on a daily basis. Sometimes we have a happy ending, sometimes not. But, it we have people in our lives to lend us love and support, that will help us to get through anything.
Rating:
Summary: *****
Review: Being a huge fan of Moresi, I was excited to read Suburban Renewal. Again, she has created a page turner until the end. Suburban Renewal introduces you to Corrie and her husband Sam. After 25 years of marriage, we peek into their morning routine of coffee and reading the paper. Without waring, Corrie brings up the "D" word ~ divorce. Like no other novel that I have had the pleasure of reading, Moresi takes us back 25 years prior to when the couple first meets and falls in love. We learn the struggles that Corrie & Sam have to deal with over the years which begin with teenage pregnancy. Corrie's mother does not approve of Sam and is ashamed of her careless daughter. Corrie and Sam choose to get married and have their daughter, Lauren. With little money, the couple moves into a garage apartment and try to make ends meet. Corrie's mother is trying to swallow the choices that she has made until she learns that Corrie is pregnant with her second child. Suburban Renewal is filled with Corrie & Sam's struggles - from his father coming back into his life, raising teenagers, unemployment, AIDS and suicide. One aspect of Moresi's writing that I love is that her stories are not happy from the beginning to the end. Meaning, they are true to life and the struggles that we endure on a daily basis. Sometimes we have a happy ending, sometimes not. But, it we have people in our lives to lend us love and support, that will help us to get through anything.
Rating: 
Summary: NO GO
Review: Carrie and Sam Braydon are about to celebrate twenty-five years of marriage when she gives him an ultimatum. He can renew their vows based on whether he would marry her today if they were not wedded or they can divorce. Sam is confused as both look back over the years starting in 1977 when she informed him that she was pregnant. He immediately offered to marry her and she accepts. Carrie wants Sam to remarry her only if he really wants to spend the rest of their lives together. Over the years, the couple has two children, manages several businesses, held several jobs, and were forced economic to live separately at times. Her family and his aunt provide caring support though her mother hates Sam. His father who killed his mother is freed from prison and he has a negative impact on the family. Still it is the twenty-first century and the children are gone. Will Sam agree to renew his vows or seek his freedom? SUBURBAN RENEWAL contains strong lead protagonists and solid support cast whose motivations seem apropos to their personal traits. The rotational first person account between Sam and Carrie enables the audience to see deeper into how each one interprets the same event/incident. Though his father is too nasty to accept anyone would trust him with their children (his grandson lives with him for a time), romance readers will enjoy this powerful character study that showcases the ups and downs of the Braydon bunch. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: powerful character study
Review: Carrie and Sam Braydon are about to celebrate twenty-five years of marriage when she gives him an ultimatum. He can renew their vows based on whether he would marry her today if they were not wedded or they can divorce. Sam is confused as both look back over the years starting in 1977 when she informed him that she was pregnant. He immediately offered to marry her and she accepts. Carrie wants Sam to remarry her only if he really wants to spend the rest of their lives together. Over the years, the couple has two children, manages several businesses, held several jobs, and were forced economic to live separately at times. Her family and his aunt provide caring support though her mother hates Sam. His father who killed his mother is freed from prison and he has a negative impact on the family. Still it is the twenty-first century and the children are gone. Will Sam agree to renew his vows or seek his freedom? SUBURBAN RENEWAL contains strong lead protagonists and solid support cast whose motivations seem apropos to their personal traits. The rotational first person account between Sam and Carrie enables the audience to see deeper into how each one interprets the same event/incident. Though his father is too nasty to accept anyone would trust him with their children (his grandson lives with him for a time), romance readers will enjoy this powerful character study that showcases the ups and downs of the Braydon bunch. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: NO GO
Review: First let me start by saying that I read another book by this author, Letting Go, which I thought was a very nice read. That is what prompted me to pick Suburban Renewal up. I read about 100 pgs and I just cannot bore myself any further. I don't know, maybe I wasn't in the mood to read this type novel, but I found it truly boring. I didn't care about these people's lives and talk about slow moving. I did not enjoy and did not care to finish. Also, there seems to be a religious angle in both this book and Letting Go. I am not into that religious mumbo jumbo. I guess this was it for me and this author, although, I see so many good reviews. Hey, we can't all like the same things. This is just one negative opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Good but very different...
Review: I enjoyed this book, and I didn't really expect to. I've read Ms. Morsi's books for years, and I always LOVED them. But those were her historical "Americana" romance novels. Since she moved to contemporary settings and less "romantic" plots, I've avoided her work. But there was just something about this book... It begins with Corrie Braydon giving Sam, her husband of twenty-five years, an ultimatum-- give me a reason why we should stay together other than inertia. The book then skips back in time to 1977 when Corrie and Sam were married and moves forward from there. The chapters switch points of view, first Sam then Corrie and so on. We see Corrie and Sam have children, struggle with the end of the oil boom in the eighties, and battle illness. Throughout the book I could REALLY feel what the characters were feeling, and I LOVED the ending. I recommend this book without hesitation. Read this book-- you will enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring and empowering
Review: Once again, in her quiet, understated way, Pamela Morsi captures the essence of what makes a simple life worth living, and an everyday person -- extraordinary and worth knowing. Her characters do not save the world from super villains or dodge bullets; instead, they live our own lives. We recognize ourselves in them. We share their pain and their joys, and we feel that if they can do it, so can we.
Corrie had great plans at eighteen: college, a career. Then she became pregnant, and all that changed. Sam did not see this as a disaster. He was only too happy to propose. They started a life together.
A lot happens in twenty-five years: a child, then another one. A business, then another. Old friends, new friends. Death, new life, new generations. Urban sprawl, economic ups and downs. Everything impacts a family. Everything could destroy it, or strengthen it. Pam Morsi takes us along on Corrie and Sam's life journey, and we root and cry for them, because they could be us.
Pamela Morsi's latest novel couldn't be better titled. Without fanfare or grand parades, through trials and tragedies, her characters find the strength to renew themselves constantly. They face disaster and destruction, and renovate themselves and their environment without faltering. We close the book with a feeling of hope: we can have this too, because it's not something Sam and Corrie were given on a golden platter. They worked hard to earn what they achieved. Suburban Renewal is a story of success in everyday life.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written and interesting
Review: SUBURBAN RENEWAL holds the reader's attention.
The device that author Pamela Morsi uses, of having a husband and wife provide their versions of the story, in turns, is a an excellent one.
And the fact that the story is chronological, with the principal characters' lives mirroring the events of that moment, also proves intriguing. The cycle of life here begins with the Vietnam War and ends with the September 11th attack.
All of this is fine. It only is after the novel has been completed that it becomes obvious that the story is implausible. Author Morsi has given her poor characters more trials than the Biblical Job.
She also fails to explain the feelings of the husband and wife for one another, the wife remaining particularly ambiguous. Does she ever love the husband? Did she love him at some points in their marriage? Is she still in love at the end of the tale?
Beautifully as this book has been written, these are the questions which inform the underlying story, and these questions never are explored.
The parts of the novel about small town life, and about a small town in mid-20th Century America joining the modern world, are among the best of SUBURBAN RENEWAL'S subplots.
SUBURBAN RENEWAL is not perfect fiction, but it is good.
Rating:
Summary: Enthralling study of a family- how they deal with LIFE
Review: Terrific read, even though the beginning goes a bit slow. Watching the characters develop, blossom, respond to challenges- plus the historical angle of the last 30 years in America, add up to a fascinating examination of how one family functioned together. This is more of a real life romance. Not the starry kind of looking-across-the-room at each other and "falling" in love. This is how true love develops and how a husband and wife realize the importance of the other. This is a love story that focuses on how real life impacts love. Read it and then get your hands on everything Morsi has written. Her delightful (and humorous) earlier books will keep you laughing, while looking at interesting heroines who are NOT beautiful on the outside, but find their beauty in other ways. Morsi is my favorite- and that is saying a lot, considering how many great romance writers there are!
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