Overall I liked the book but the storyline felt a bit forced at times. The basic premise itself, "the lie" almost didn't seem big enough to be the center of the story so the reactions to it seemed too much. And the relationship with Mrs. Feldman was not, in my opinion, as developed as it should have been given that relationship was supposed to be driving the story. I think there are good bones here but those bones need more fleshing out to make the story more fluid and believable.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped. The beginning was very slow. I put it down to read other thing several times. And many elements of the story didn't seem believable to me, I think because so many different major events were crammed into the story. It seemed like too much happened to this one girl.

This book was billed as the story of Mammy (Ruth) from GWTW. Unfortunately, the author seems to have forgotten to take Ruth along on the trip! The first third to a half of the book only mentions Ruth in the most peripheral way and I felt that I didn't get to know the character at all. By the time it switched to first person and you actually learned something about Ruth I was bored with the whole endeavor and just skimmed the rest. I never felt engaged with the characters or the story because the stated purpose of the book - telling Ruth's story was not fulfilled.

I wanted to like this book as I found the subject intriguing but I didn't like it much at all. I thought the characters were very one dimensional and often their emotions did not seem to ring true. I particularly despised the way Ben's character was drawn. He seemed to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It would have been a richer story if there had been a hint of redemption in the way Ben handled the crisis instead of an overwhelming sense of narcissistic priggery.

Okay, I admit. I was skeptical. Aging hippie and her daughters? It didn't sound like my usual cup of tea but I was wrong. This was a lovely book. The characters were engaging and finely drawn. They seemed like real people, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I genuinely cared what happened to Helen, Fiona, Lianne and Ilsa and the secondary characters like Myra and Johnny. This would be an excellent book club novel with much to discuss about how the various women handled their personal relationships. Highly recommend.

Ancient Rome is not an era I normally read but Ms. Smith brought it to life beautifully. The background seemed well researched and the characters felt authentic to the time period. It is a serious irritation to me when authors use inappropriate modern colloquialisms in their writing and there was little if any of that in this book. I look forward to reading more from Ms. Smith.

I was a huge fan of Kelly Corrigan's "The Middle Place" and her third book, "Glitter and Glue" is just as good if not better. The book is a powerful meditation on mothers and daughters written from the perspective of an avowed daddy's girl who discovers she has much more in common with her mother than she would have believed. Ms. Corrigan's writing style is casual and engaging. Reading the book is much like reading the blog of a good friend. It is revealing and tender and funny. Highly recommend.

The author did an excellent job creating the scenes in the book. Her imagery was so vivid, it was almost possible to smell the scents in the streets of Istanbul. The plot, however, lagged a bit in the beginning. It took some time to get involved with the characters but untimately I enjoyed the story so I am glad I stuck with it. This is an excellent book for those who enjoy historical fiction as well as those who like strong female characters.

It takes a special gift to take a difficult subject (profoundly disabled child) and make a beautiful story from it. The author's personal experience with a disabled child makes this story shine. At various times I loved and sincerely disliked both Anna and Tobias which made them seem all the more like real people who were struggling with how to cope when life isn't want they wanted or expected.

The supporting characters were finely drawn and every character was entirely believable. This is a story for anyone who has struggled to fit into their life or make their life fit their expectations.

It hits exactly the right note; not too cheery to be genuine and not too depressing to enjoy. Excellent read.

It took quite a while for me to get interested in the story even though the book's premise hooked me right away. Part of it was because the author was trying far too hard in the beginning. His writing style kept getting in the way of the story. The story line kept getting lost in a forest of metaphors. I was very annoyed by this particularly when the metaphor filled paragraphs were about things that were totally irrelevant to the story like the plane trip back from South Africa. Meandering descriptive paragraphs about a plane ride are just filler to make the book longer. The other problem was that even though the Fenton years were by far the more interesting story, the author's "voice" as a teenager never seemed genuine to me. There was too much extrapolation of adult conceits onto his teenage characters.