Rating: 
Summary: Liars and Saints
Review: With a matter-of-fact, curt style of writing, Maile Meloy succintly tells the story of four generations of a catholic family from California. Despite the brevity with which she writes the novel, Meloy still manages to explore the fears, thoughts, and emotions of her characters in an insightful and intelligent manner. By covering so many generations and telling the story from each person's perspective, she allows for the reader to gain an understanding of the overall dynamic between the characters. It is an extremely engaging, easy to read story that thoughtfully explores the lives of a superficially normal but deeply complex family.
Rating: 
Summary: most are a little of both
Review: _Liars and Saints_ by Maile Meloy is the multi-generational saga of a Catholic family. This short description may call to mind a very long book, entrenched in the lives of each character, filled with description of each era and bogged down by characterization, but unlike most stories of this type, Meloy's novel is a quick read with relatively short chapters, easy to delve into and difficult to put down.Each chapter is told by the point of view of a different character, with frequent years-long skips ahead in time. The story begins with the marriage of Yvette and Teddy Santerre during WWII, his overseas fighting, the births of their daughters (Margot and Clarissa), and Teddy's jealousy. The secrets begin almost immediately as Yvette confesses a small one to her husband (at the recommendation of her priest) only to have it be a mistake to have told him; she never faces truth easily again. The birth of the family's third child, Jamie, is cloaked in subterfuge as only Yvette and her oldest daughter know that this boy is really Yvette and Teddy's GRANDCHILD, not their son, as everyone will believe until Jamie is well into adulthood. The family's transgressions, secrets, and tribulations continue from there, becoming more outlandish as the reader is fully immersed in the novel, truly cares about the characters, and is therefore able to suspend some disbelief. Meloy's writing style is to treat the most serious matters very lightly, which some may consider a flaw, but I actually found that it made the events easier to digest somehow. The progeny of the Santerres, Yvette and Teddy's great-grandchild, is another birth of mysterious parentage and also of tragedy, but little T.J. becomes the focus and seems to bring about the final redemption of them all: patriarch, daughters, and grandson; as well as some important stragglers picked up along the way. I thought the religious aspect of this novel might become overbearing for me and it almost did in one of the later chapters, but Meloy pulled it back just in time for a perfect balance of God's will and personal determination. I fully loved this book for its ability to pull me in and not let go, but some of its sheer implausibility (in my mind) caused me to give it 4 instead of 5 stars.
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