Next time I find myself thinking that I need a really easy read, I'll edit my thought to be "I need an easy, BUT STILL WORTHWHILE, read."

Although I hate to love, and love to hate on Oprah and her book club books, they usually are pretty decent. Oprah needs to fire who ever read this book for her, at once!

And the thing I find the most perplexing is that my mom left it in my room at home to read. I mean, she actually read this book and thought to herself "Liz would like this" and then put it in my room for me to find. It just baffles me. (to her credit though she has recommended many fine books in the past...)

WAY disappointed by this book. A big part of it is that I love Elizabeth Berg. She is is one of my favorite authors, and the Kate Nash series (Durable Goods, Joy School, True to Form) is one of the best series about growing up I've ever read. Sorry to say, Open House was nowhere near the quality of her many other books.

I had a hard time connecting with Sam, the female lead. She seemed like a pushover with no backbone or even a clue. Very hard to root for someone like that. Nothing in the story is resolved within the book. The characters never really impact each other. Recently divorced with an eleven year old son, Samantha decides to open her house to a series of strangers, but it's hard to put a finger on where this benefits her or why she does it. Her romance was with a man named King was interesting and sweet, but never felt like the real thing. Also, I hate very graphic sex scenes, and the ones in this book were over the top.

On the positive side, this book, as Ms. Berg's others books are, is beautifully written. I love her style of writing and will continue to read her books. This one, however, fell short.

I like Elizabeth Berg's books, but this one felt a little dated at 23 years since publication. The novel deals with a woman whose husband leaves her. She has a son and almost no job experience, so she takes in roommates and does temp jobs to make ends meet. Those are fun aspects to the book. The rest of her experience feels like stories we've heard over and over, but it never hurts to be reminded that women can make lives for themselves, even after years of being dependent.

Just a fun easy read about 42 year old Samantha who must learn to live on her own with her 11 year old son Travis after her husband decides he wants a divorce and leaves her. The book is written with lots of humor and Sam's interactions with her new borders; an elderly woman with a boyfriend, an extremely negative depressed student and a wonderful hair stylist gay man make for an interesting mix of personalities that add to her already challenging situation. However, when she meets KING, her whole world changes as she finds a friend and lover who appreciates her for herself and loves her just the way she is.

This is my first Elizabeth Berg read, and, although I can't say it is one of my favorite books, I did enjoy it and intend to checkout her other books.

This was a quick book to read. It's about divorce and how one woman goes thru it. All the emotions and feelings that we go thru.

Samantha think she has it all. The perfect life, one kid, a handsome husband, a lovely and big house. But her husband pulls the rug out from under her feet when he announces that he's leaving her. She couldn't have seen it coming.

This book follows Samantha through the ups and downs of being newly single and divorced. She laughs. She cries. She's pretty awful at times. But she is very very human.

This was a very easy read and perhaps not the best book I've ever read, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

A nice, light read if you're looking for something quick and easy.

Elizabeth Berg tells the story of one woman's life after an unwanted divorce. Her emotional roller coaster takes her on a rocky ride from anger to pathetic neediness to revenge and finally, to resolution. Other reviewers have panned the main character Samantha as shallow, but I think the author did an accurate job of describing someone who is all over the map after her world comes to a shocking end. Sometimes her behaviour even comes at the expense of her own eleven-year-old son, which adds guilt to her seething cauldron of emotions.

Nobody can beat Berg when it comes to creating characters. Here's a description of one very minor character named Marie, who works at the local supermarket checkout counter: "Over one breast she wears a name tag, pinned, as usual, at an odd angle. She doesn't need a name tag, anyway. Everybody knows her; she is everyone's surrogate something. She is in her late fifties, overweight in the deeply comforting way. She has compassionate blue eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, beautiful skin that she has told me she owes to mayonnaise masks."

Very simply written, Berg's books may seem like cream puffs on the surface, but yield a rich and nourishing reading experience. This one was an Oprah's Book Club Selection.

A satisfying read, great character development and a good pace. The title comes from the idea that if we lifted the roofs off people's houses and saw how they really lived, it'd be a different story from their outward appearances. (copied review) Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself.

3 Stars

This story definitely shows how so many people get caught up and lost inside their own lives. We not only get lost by running on that hamster wheel for work; but also for our personal lives. At some point, you wake up and ask, "What the hell am I doing?" If you answer, you just might save yourself.

Take the red pill.

Edit: I've been thinking a lot about this book since I read it, and not in a good way. The stereotyping of secondary characters is so 50s and pre-civil rights. At this point, unless its historical fiction from Jim Crow era or before; the stereotyping of POC is not cute. I still enjoyed the story; in spite of the blatant stereotypes; I mean racism and "microagressions" are just a part of the norm for black folk, or at least me. Anyway, hence the 3 stars. Sorry not sorry.

Awesome book & story. I'll say more in a bit.

I really did enjoy this book - it was very readable and fast paced. I cared about the key characters. Alot of what happens in the book felt true to life, and I particularly enjoyed the relationships between Sam and her son, and Sam and her mother. I also thought that Berg used her secondary characters, the people who roomed at Samantha's, quite well. The evolution of the characters was good. The plot was engaging, overall. Some of the imagery is quite stunning.

So why not a full five stars? I've struggled with that; I read this book ages ago and I've avoided reviewing it because I've been torn. The problem is that although the book was good, it wasn't particularly great. In the first three or four chapters, it seems like Berg is going to really let Samantha struggle, and we're going to get to see some of the real pain a person can feel as they rebuild from a separation. The problem is she never quite goes far enough; the emotional depth isn't quite there. Everything seems to be wrapped up too quickly and easily. I wanted to get a better understanding of who David was, and why the marriage broke up (to be fair to Berg, she does write some effective flashbacks, and this really is Sam's story, not Sam and David's story). And I wanted to like the character of King more. He was just goofy to me.

In short, if you want a book that's well written and a fast read, you'll like this book. If you're looking for something with really deep insights into how a woman recovers from her husband suddenly walking out, this book doesn't quite live up to it's potential. Enjoy it for a light summer read.