What do readers think of The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst? Write your own review.

I usually judge a new book by considering after I've read it if it was worth my money. I would not have been disappointed in spending money here - I enjoyed reading Carolyn Parkhurst's newest novel which more or less centered on a mother/son relationship but included a bit of murder and mystery. The Dogs of Babel is my favorite but this book is worth reading. I was quite taken with the author's thought process on changing the ending to her previously published novels - a rather "novel" idea, I thought. I like this author's style of writing - concise, descriptive without boring you with too much depth and layered with thought-provoking dialogue. While not an extremely "deep" novel that requires intense concentration, it's a great summer read. The book gets a thumbs up from me and I would suggest it to my friends.

This was a winning combination of family drama and murder mystery. Octavia Frost is a bestselling novelist, whose career takes off after a family tragedy. With several novels under her belt, Frost thinks she has come up with a revolutionary idea to create an anthology of the last chapters of all her novels, but with different endings. Is it really her novels she wants to rewrite or her own history?

Frost's rock-star son, Milo, has been estranged from his mother; but a murder accusation forces them to confront their issues and reconcile their past. Their relationship is slowly revealed and pieced together out of the pages of Octavia's novels.

Parkhurst alternately mixes Octavia's stories with the present. It was a wonderful way to develop Octavia's character and demonstrate how a person's words and actions are not always a true indication of their feelings and intentions. So often, people wish they had said this or done that, after the fact. I loved how Parkhurst made me question how we reveal ourselves to others and if we could rewrite parts of our past, would it be worth it. Not only was this a well-written and layered family drama; but it was also a great mystery.

Octavia's world evolves around her writing, and she often looks at life through the lens of a story unfolding. She has regrets about the past, especially about her relationship with her rock star son, Milo. When Milo was nine, his father and sister died tragically, leaving just him and Octavia. She and he are a lot of alike and constantly butted heads as he was growing up. She wasn't there for him as much as she would have liked, lost in her own grief and not quite sure how to handle his.

While there is a mystery aspect to the book, the main thrust of the story is of Octavia's reflection on her own life and of her relationship with her son. She is getting to know him again, as if for the first time. The author did a good job of capturing Octavia's thoughts and feelings. I wasn't sure what to think of Octavia for most of the book, but she showed a lot of growth as the novel progressed. By the end, I quite liked her.

It took me a while to get into the novel. Interspersed throughout are excerpts of Octavia's latest writing project, a book called The Nobodies Album. Octavia has taken to rewriting the endings to all her novels and hopes to publish them in an anthology of sorts. Had she written those same stories today, how differently would they have ended? This was her opportunity to change the past, so to speak. I was less than impressed with the excerpts, however, and think that the novel would have come off fine without them, perhaps even better if only for the lack of distraction. The same connections the author made in the excerpts were made in the actual story as well. Although, I will say the excerpts got better towards the end.

There were several passages I wish now I had jotted down to share with you, phrases and ideas that caught my fancy. As a person who loves stories, I was drawn to Octavia's observations and take on life, especially in regards to her writing--how it affected her life and how her life affected her writing.

While I enjoyed The Nobodies Album in the end and came to care for all of the characters, I still felt a bit disappointed when all was said and done. I do think I'd like to give the author another try. She clearly has a way with words and is able to get inside the minds of her characters.

Almost famous novelist Octavia Frost and her rocker son, MIlo, have been estranged for a number of years following a horrific family tragedy. Not until Milo's headline-making arrest for the murder of his girlfriend does Octavia reappear in her son's life, coming to his rescue. I actually liked the exploration of Octavia and MIlo's relationship. In between chapters throughout the book, Octavia rewrites the endings of her novels to compose her latest book - "The Nobodies Album". I found these interspersed rewrites distracting, and dreaded when the next rewrite would appear. Either I completely missed how these rewrites were supposed to further explain Octavia and Milo's relationship, or Parkhurst didn't do such a great job of making Octavia's rewrites relevant to the story. I was left disappointed, especially since I loved Parkhurst's earlier novel, "The Dogs of Babel". Readers will finish "The Nobodies Album" somewhat confused and wanting more.

Though I wanted to like this book and did enjoy some aspects of it, overall I didn't care for it. The sections of the book that were new-endings to Octavia's books were odd and many I could not connect to the plot of the main story. Wanted to know the story of Octavia and her family and its tragedy, but by the end the book just fizzled out for me.