50 pages in and I am already disappointed. Dive from Clausen's Pier was so great, I had high hopes for this book. I am going to listen to this instead while I do other things because it does not deserve my full attention. ( )

bookbox; Liz and Sarabeth have been best friends since high school, but as adults their paths have diverged. Liz is married with a family, and Sarabeth is still single. When Liz's daugher attempts suicide, the friendship fractures. ( )

There's something about Ann Packer: Her books sound so interesting, yet I've never made it through one. I HATE starting a book and then giving up on it, but her books are so dull and dry that I get bored and depressed while reading them. It's like she takes all the fun out of reading and turns it into a job. UGH. ( )

I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't like this book. A few reasons I CAN think of are 1) it is disjointed. There are snippets of different things that happen, but they aren't necessarily tied together with one another, they are just bits and pieces of the life of certain characters, which brings me to 2) there was no purpose to this story. The main characters have a falling out, then they make up. In the meantime, they deal with the attempted suicide of the daughter of one of them. But 3) the "falling out" comes from no where, and I don't really understand what happened there. It was bizarre. 4) It took me a while to get into this book. Part 1 was a struggle, part 2 was a breeze, then part 3 was a struggle again. 4) The ending was pretty abrupt. Where did that even come from? It's as if the author said "I have to wrap this story up in three pages, so I'm just going to end it". 5) Characters are introduced that you think will become recurring, important characters, and then you never hear from them again. 6) I don't like the author's writing style. It is choppy, flips from one character pov to the next without warning or obvious notation, and I could really do without the french lessons. Also, 7) I think the author is superfluous with words, and maybe less really is better. 8) I feel like there are a lot of loose ends that were left untied.

I wouldn't read this book again. It was almost like work, trudging through it. I hate to put a book down once I start it, but this one felt like a chore for 2/3 of the book. ( )

Liz and Sarabeth have been best friends since they were children and when Sarabeth's mother committed suicide when Sarabeth was 16 years old Liz's family took Sarabeth into their home to live with them as the girls finished high school together. Now, years later, Liz is married with 2 teenage children and Sarabeth is single and trying to find her own happiness. Liz's daughter, Lauren, has been showing signs of depression but her parents don't recognize her pleas for help until it is almost too late. During this frightening time Sarabeth relives the nightmare of her mother's depression and suicide and instead of rushing to her lifelong friend's side she closes herself off from any personal contact with the issue. Liz resents her friend's seeming abandonment and a deep rift affects the women's closeness. Liz and her husband find their marriage beginning to crumble and Liz is heartbroken that she has no one to turn to. Each woman wants to reach out to the other but anger keeps Liz away and fear shackles Sarabeth.

I liked the characters in this book for the most part and I thought the story was well told. It was frightening to see how quickly the character of Lauren went from feelings of worthlessness to such extreme measures. The parents feelings of guilt and confusion were understandable and Lauren's subsequent treatments were realistic. I just felt the book was a bit slow at times with not much happening.
( )