Oh my goodness that ended fast and, well, kind of underwhelming. But I guess family can be underwhelmingly normal, too. I liked Laura. She was quirky but responsible and mature. I liked Caroline's complexity as well. Just not enough. ( )

Sometimes things go on in a family that no one seems to know about. Things can happen and others in the family will never find out, until someone says something.
This is a book about that subject. It was done very well. ( )

Well done. I couldn't put this down and read it in a day. ( )

At a family reunion, quilt-maker Laura Bartone discovers a horrible family secret from her odd and difficult younger sister Caroline. Although this novel had moments of emotional resonance, there were far too many moments that felt like simply padding, arbitrary and irrelevant to the story. For instance, the details about a dog quilt that Laura is making for a client who is not even named or seen in the novel seemed entirely superfluous, as did the discussion about the hypochondria of a friend's partner who similarly never makes an appearance. Some offhand observations, such as how Laura's fabric collection, like a hardware store, is satisfying in its completeness, "because everything is there," would have been nicer if they had more relevance to the story.

Although some of Laura's relationships were lifelike and realistic, the pastiche of Laura's life never meshed into an organic whole. Laura seems to be on the one hand a good person, a good wife and mother, leading an idyllic life, and on the other a seriously flawed and emotionally inadequate sister. How did she get from point A to point B? This story from sister Caroline's point of view would have made a much more interesting novel.

Most annoying to me were old-fashioned, sexist assumptions about men's and women's natures and gender roles, which turned everyone into a caricature: men who can't talk about their emotions, the really good woman friend who you can share everything with, the ebullient and effusive gay man who runs the fabric store and is going on vacation to—where else?—San Francisco. It's almost as if Elizabeth Berg only had the time or resources to flesh out the relationships central to the plot and everyone else was just a stand-in. Such cheap stereotypes kept me from becoming involved in what was a plot that should have struck very close to home. ( )

Eh. I mean, it was a compelling story and I finished it very quickly. But a lot of the supporting cast were no more than props to make the MC feel better about herself, the ending lacked any sort of true satisfying emotional conclusion, and I think the decision to have the story told from the perspective of Laura and not Caroline took away from the younger sister's narrative. Laura served as a manageable cipher for readers to see a flawed and toxic family dynamic from the eyes of someone who only realized in retrospect how terrible her sister was being treated... but then the story can't trust Caroline to tell her own story through her own POV.

Having Laura be a quilt maker was such a lazy metaphor for piecing her family together. Her being a quilt maker didn't even serve the plot in the end, just was a distraction during pivotal scenes (spacing out because her spaghetti looks like a cool pattern while her sister is trying to talk about how their mother abused her - really? I'm supposed to like this woman???)

I think the most believable relationship is between Laura and Pete. They argue, they fight, they make up, they do silly stuff and make out in the parking lots of fast food joints. Steve, Laura's brother, popped in and out during the first half of the book but didn't stick around, and as a consequence became very forgettable and not crucial to the story.

I dunno. It's a quick read and it's well written for the most part, but other than that, it's very fluffy with little emotional substance. ( )