Boy did I have trouble with this book. I had difficulty giving it a rating... sometimes I just wish there were 1/2 stars because in reality I would have given it 3 and 1/2 stars- but ended up giving it 4. I had a lot of problems with this book because I found it to be a completely difficult, yet gripping book to read. I didn't like any one character because in my eyes none of them were honorable and they all had their own problems that were as a result of their own stupid, careless mistakes. This book was depressing and had me in a terrible mood throughout the whole time I was reading. I just wanted it to end, but of course I kept chugging along because I wanted to see what happened next. I ask this: does that make a good book? I don't know.

Fine storytelling, albeit long and seemingly interminable, never ever dulled. A diluted Mockingbird, a more accessible Americanized Stone upon Stone, an attempt to mimic Steinbeck but in a much younger basic way. At times her characters did infuriate and agonize, as much by their repetitive dumbness as by their typified caricatures. At other times, it made me lol and ‘pageturn’. Would recommend this but given the avoidance of cerebral prose or depth, wouldn’t be interested in a re-read. Good stuff nonetheless.

I'm giving up on page 58. Other readers seem to either love this book or hate it. There are too many sub-plots and characters here to keep them all straight. In the first 50 pages, there have to be 40 characters introduced and other than living in the same town, I can't see what relationship they have to the central family. And I can't identify with the two young boys who seem to be the main characters. Life is short - I'm moving on to another book.

I really enjoyed this book. After reading the reviews I was not expecting much...just goes to show, everyone has different reading preferences. As you can see from my rating, I found this story very compelling and the characters very well developed.

I picked this up at a Little Free Library and because the cover said it was one of Oprah's picks for her book club, I decided to give it a go. I had mixed feelings about it. I guess it held my attention for all 740 pages but something just seemed off. Benjy's desire to keep the peace at all costs despite a lurking danger didn't seem realistic to me. What I took away from this novel was that the Fermoyle family had a lot of issues to deal with. But the reality is that, behind closed doors, most families do, too.

I started this book once before an it did not keep my attention and I was so sure it was a story I would enjoy. I read another book and picked this one up again. For some reason this time it grabbed my attention and I didn't want to put it down. I troubled bunch of characters whose personalities jumped off the page!

so long and so hard to finish - nothing about this book made me want to keep reading, but I finished it.

This book is chunky!!! I like the world - it was a long journey and I think to enjoy this book you should *focus on the journey*

Suggested accompaniments as you read:
- Real housewives of Orange County seasons with Brooks
- the one star reviews on Goodreads that call out Oprah for having this in her book club - I laughed OUT LOUD

This book was like the slow drip of Chinese water torture. Morris gave us no light to balance the excruciatingly bleak lives of nearly every character in this small town, full of murderers, philanderers, thieves, drunks, abusers, and con artists. No one to admire, no humor to break the tension. And it just went on. And on. And on. (Hello? Editors??) Still, I kept reading, thinking the payoff might finally come in a gripping denouement. It didn't. What a disappointment.

In a nutshell: Foolish, negative people make horrible (and often illegal) decisions, treat each other like excrement, then call themselves victims. Don't spend a moment wallowing in this cesspool.

So I bought this book last year because it's set in Vermont and I was going on a fall vacation in Vermont. Hey, it made sense in my head at the time. And it has an Oprah sticker on it. Not that an Oprah sticker is infallible (do we need to relieve "A Million Little Pieces" or the problematic "Three Cups of Tea"?) but generally she has some good picks. At least they're good reads.

Anyway, I digress.

As I listed this book on Goodreads I took a peek at some of the reviews, and the bulk of the ones that came up for me were 1-star reviews. Some people, it seems, HATED this book. Too slow. No action. Hate the characters.

But I picked it up. And ... really liked it.

Here's the thing: There isn't a character in here that I absolutely love. I have problems with everyone. Every. Single. Person. But by the end, I don't really hate anyone, either. Which may be the point. There's so much going on in people's lives, so much history even with young people, that nothing is very straightforward. Everyone has flaws (and then some in this book), but what I liked was being able to see them whole -- the things that I understood, the things I liked, the things I hated yet felt compassion for them anyway. (There is a good chance I'm just a sap, by the way).

Of all the characters, I'd like to spend some time on Marie, the mother at the center of much of the story. She is so complicated. Well, maybe not so complicated. She gets pregnant young and marries Sam and they have two more kids, but Sam is a drunk and that ends in divorce and lots of continuous drama. She was never going to depend on a man, or anyone, ever again. Then walks in Omar Duval, who is a huckster with a soft side at times. She falls for him, believes his soap-selling scheme will be the answer to her problems, agrees to marry him, basically feels great until it all unravels at the end. (Oops. Spoiler alert. But really, if you're reading this and don't think there is some big unravelling of Duval and his scheme, then I don't know what to tell you.)

But at the end of the book (Big Spoiler here) when the neighborhood gets together to pitch in and help repair her falling down house, she is disgusted. She sees it as pity, as charity, and she is not a charity case. But wait, it was OK for Omar to come in and take care of her? But not her neighbors? She always thinks people are talking about her, badly, and by the end I just want to shake her and say NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU THAT MUCH! TAKE WHATEVER HUMAN KINDNESS YOU CAN GET.

But she would probably think that was pity, too.

Not a favorite.

Every single one of these characters continually made the worst possible decisions at every opportunity. It became increasingly absurd that no one seemed to ever learn from their mistakes or to even recognize that their own poor decisions were to blame for their misery.

The con-man was written very well- he came off as sleazy and slimy as he should have been. All of the characters were written really solidly, to be honest. It was just the constant, unfailing, pick-the-worst-choice-possible plot device that drove me nuts.

Well this seemed to be the book that never ended! Very long. It took a while for me to get caught up in it but then I wanted to keep reading to see how it all turned out. For those reasons I would rate it 3 to 3.5 stars.

It is well written - but too long! Everyone in this novel has problems. Characters are well developed though and I truly felt I could visualize them. But it was a bit depressing that the characters seemed not to be able to pull themselves out of their situations. The only one I had any hope for in the end was dysfunctional Blue Mooney!

I was disappointed in the abrupt ending. An interesting read nonetheless.