Randy Susan MeyersReseñas

Family Abuse

I have to be honest, this is a tough book to read. Not because the writing isn't great (it is!) but it is the subject: a marriage that could have gone so right, instead has gone so wrong due to a violent temper.

Two people (Maddy and Ben) love each other, yet Ben's inability to control his temper over the years has worn thin the threads of what could've been a strong marriage. When a car accident puts Maddy in a position of fighting for her life, she also finds herself wondering if she has the strength to fight for her marriage that has been an endless walking-on-eggshells strain for years.

I've read all of this author's books, and her background knowledge and research in domestic violence helps bring this (tragic) story to life.

Loved it - it wove the views from three different women on what it is to be a mom, and what lengths we will go to for a child.

There was a LOT going on in this book, and I think it would have been more compelling if it had focused in on one or two pieces. The various mother/daughter, husband/wife, mother/daughter relations; Alice's work at the community center; the program itself; the racial dynamics; the cosmetology work; the documentary; the drugs... It was just all a lot, and I think the breadth meant that the author didn't dive as deep or create as strong plotlines as she could have. The creation of the documentary at the end felt especially rushed, and I wanted more about the reaction to it.

2.5 stars. I disliked every character. Not sure why I stuck it out!½

Predictable, unexciting, unrealistic. I wanted to like it, but I should have known it would not be my cup of tea from the synopsis. I wanted to shake all three of these women (and believe me the men were not one bit better).

Very good story about two little girls growing up and dealing with the aftermath of their childhood. Not necessarily a feel-good story, doesn't end with everything wrapped up neatly in a little package. But then life doesn't usually end that way so it turned out very realistically. Would read another by this author.

I really didn't like this book.

I think verbal abuse happens all too often. The family struggle is real.

A complex story about family, mistakes, adoption, and the ties that bind and tear us apart told from three alternating points-of-view (okay, four, if you count a few chapters told from the man's point-of-view toward the end of the story).

A lot of issues were explored, but I didn't feel satisfied with the summary ending. I really wanted a symbol to tie it all up, something that would resonate long after the book was finished. With something this complex, the reader needs to feel like the struggle will continue and be given a symbol of the strength the characters will need or develop or a hint at their failure. That's the only thing keeping me from giving this book 5 stars.

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Two estranged sisters find that forgiveness never goes out of style when they inherit their mother’s vintage jackets, purses… and pearls of wisdom

Estranged half-sisters Gabrielle Winslow and Lulu Quattro have only two things in common: mounds of debt and coils of unresolved enmity toward Bette Bradford, their controlling and imperious recently deceased mother.

Gabrielle, the firstborn, was raised in relative luxury on Manhattan’s rarefied Upper East Side. Now, at fifty-five, her life as a Broadway costume designer married to a heralded Broadway producer has exploded in divorce.

Lulu, who spent half her childhood under the tutelage of her working-class Brooklyn grandparents, is a grieving widow at forty-eight. With her two sons grown, her life feels reduced to her work at the Ditmas Park bakery owned by her late husband’s family.

The two sisters arrive for the reading of their mother’s will, expecting to divide a sizable inheritance, pay off their debts, and then again turn their backs on each other.

But to their shock, what they have been left is their mother’s secret walk-in closet jammed with high-end current and vintage designer clothes and accessories— most from Chanel.

Contemplating the scale of their mother’s self-indulgence, the sisters can’t help but wonder if Lauren Weisberger had it wrong: because it seems, in fact, that the devil wore Chanel. But as they being to explore their mother’s collection, meet and fall in love with her group of warm, wonderful friends, and magically find inspiring messages tucked away in her treasures — it seems as though their mother is advising Lulu and Gabrielle from the beyond — helping them rediscover themselves and restore their relationship with each other.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I have a personal connection to this story, in that this could be my family. My sisters are a lot older than me, and our mother was the same kind of borderline personality that the dead woman was. After our mother's death, there wasn't anything left except stuff...lots and lots of stuff...and there's a long, long history of unkindness, rancor, and just plain nastiness all over our "family." I was very curious to see how things would play out fictionally.

It's not like I wasn't expecting the happily ever after...I was...but I was simultaneously frustrated and amused at how these deeply estranged siblings navigated this emotional passage without either death threats or theft taking place.

What drew me to the read was that sense of familiarity, of fellow feeling, for the characters. It was a fun way to work through my own bad past. And in the end, while I wanted the story to end the way it did, I was...curiously detached. Neither Lulu nor Gabrielle ever cohered to me, never took on the full volume of characterhood. The real character here was their horrible mother! She emerged in all her shallow, self-centered, controlling awfulness. If you've never seen The Little Mermaid, you won't know this reference, but this old baggage out-Ursula'd Ursula!

I was drawn in by the deep Chanel lore on display here, and found myself grateful for the Fire tablet's ability to browse the web. There's a lot I didn't know, and a lot I half-knew, about Chanel, so being able to check references and to see aesthetics I was ignorant about helped me to *get* this read. The sisters "playing dress-up" in Mama's clothes was a hoot. But in the end, that's just what it felt like: Playing a game in which Mama would, in the end, step in to decide who wins. (Or her lawyer, in this case, who must approve any plan for the huge collection of Chanel artifacts to be disposed of.)

So there's me, all irked with "Mother" Bette being her borderline-personality tantrummy self...there's the source of my sour, not-quite-four star rating. I was certainly drawn in by the collaborators' ability to merge their prose into one authorial voice. It shows that they're different people mostly in the hilarious older women who formed Bette's coterie of ladies-who-lunch, and Lulu's adult sons. These very, very different types didn't emerge from one brain! But they each contributed to the sense of rightness and reality that the story definitely has.

The obvious comparables to this story are Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada (actually, Author Weisberger, she wore and collected Chanel), but those aren't direct cognates. Bushnell's book and its offshoots are about navigating complications unique to upper-class modern life; Weisberger's bildungsroman takes a greenhorn into adulthood wearing amazing shoes. Here we have what happens when the Bushnell women, now mothers of another Weisberger generation, have to deal with their own mothers' deaths.

It *is* in a tradition, then, but it is *not* something you've read a dozen times already. It's the next step, it's the Bushnell women's ascent to cronehood, it's the education of the adults in the arts of being elders. It works fine. It isn't quite as full-bodied as I expected it to be, since the real main character turns out to be the dead mother; but it was more than worth my time to read. I'll venture to say that it's worth yours, too.½

I liked the premise of the story; instead of a whodunnit it is what happened in the aftermath. The story is about two sisters whose father killed their mother and stabbed his youngest daughter. The story is about how the emotionally process this throughout their life, each in a different way until an event forces them to rethink their attitude, and come to terms with reality. Some of the chapters are written from the point of view of the oldest sister, Lula and in others from Merry, the youngest. They have totally different reactions and struggles. I thought that this juxtaposition was very helpful in letting the reader understand the many facets of the situation, but a couple of times it felt a little too stereotyped. Another thing that was a bit too extreme was the nasty orphanage, and the total rejection of the girl by the mother's family.

It is clear that Randy Susan Meyers has worked in the criminal justice system with families in similar situation. She manages, in very crisp language to explain how it all works and how people play their role.

I read this book first in English and then in the Dutch edition, which was given to me by the author. The title of the Dutch edition is Vleugellam, which means "With paralysed wings". I thought this was a wonderful title for this story. Nicolien Timmer, the translator preserves the succinct language and the atmosphere of the story.

All stories have a beginning, a MUDDLE (middle) and an end. Randy Susan Meyers creates a huge muddle in her book "The comfort of lies". All four major characters are confronted with their denial of the truth, and their motives for their actions. There are no simple solutions to their problems, and they all end up making major changes in their lives. It is clear that Meyers worked for years in human services and has intimate knowledge of the ways of dysfunctional families. She writes with empathy for each of her characters.

The composition of the book is easy to follow. It is chronological with each chapter focussed on one of the protagonists. This device creates extra tension, because you feel sympathy for each point of view. The reading group guide in the back asks several questions about who the reader sympathizes with the most, and I find it hard to decide. This may also be because the protagonists belong to different segments of society, and that made especially Caroline seem arrogant and indifferent, Juliette a selfish spoiled brat, and Nathan an irresponsible jerk and Tia an promiscuous alcoholic. However, Meyers manages to flesh out her character in such away that the reader understands their stirrings in their souls and can follow their decisionmaking process.

This is an easy entertaining read with a lot of psychological depth.

Received via NetGalley for review.

I wanted to like this - I was expecting a sharp satire like Libba Bray's Beauty Queens, but instead got this self-serious novel that wasn't sure if it wanted to be a parody or not, about race or weight or society or not.

In broad strokes, the characters are well-developed, and Meyers does a great job really putting you in Alice and Daphne's heads and seeing the loathing and self-destructive behaviors they put themselves through daily. Immediately, I felt for these women and how unhappy they were. Though they were surrounded by loving husbands and family (more on this a little later...), they couldn't move past how trapped they felt, and needed extreme measures to break out.

What they went through in the Waisted mansion was truly horrible and abusive, no question, and nobody deserves that, even if they "signed up for it." But Meyers brings up a huge issue and then leaves it unresolved, teasing the reader. Alice and Daphne went through this so they could get thin; they got thin. They learned self-control and appreciation. Does that mean it worked, even though the methods were terrible?

If Meyers had really wanted to discuss society and weight and women's self-worth, she would not have left such an important question (however unintentional) examined. She even has a reporter ask the women this question, only for them to brush it off! While some of the women gained the weight back (interestingly enough, special mention is made of the two women who still live with their parents gaining back even more than they had lost), Alice and Daphne remain "thin," but in a way that still leaves them unhappy. They use the extreme self-control they learned in the "fat mansion" to constantly watch what they eat, and both women use their new sense of self to push back against their mothers and the agenda they've been pushing.

With all this, my issues with the novel can be broken down into two main categories: 1) Meyers spends too much time thinking about race issues and multiculturalism. This is as big an issue as weight and women's self-image, and trying to combine the two results in an unnecessarily novel that slows down every few pages to discuss something serious. While I am mixed-race, I am not black, and neither is Meyers. It felt intensely strange to read a white women talking about Alice's beautiful skin and eyes and ability to pass for anything she wanted, while having absolutely no experience with anything she describes.

I understand wanting to increase and promote diversity in novels, so that they reflect the real world, but there is absolutely no reason for Alice to have a Jewish mother, and Southern Catholic grandparents, AND be married to a non-american, AND have a lesbian sister who, of course, is married to a black woman. AND for Daphne to be similarly multi-cultural AND for the "fat mansion" to make sure at least one women of very race is represented (AND for Alice to take specific notice of it!)... it all feels too much, and like Meyers tried too hard.

And 2) I had no idea how fat any of these women actually were. Maybe this was an intentional choice - many women feel as though they are fatter than they are, and no amount of love can convince them otherwise. But if you're going to write a novel about weight loss, specifically, you cannot ignore actual data. Alice's mother has no problem at all with her weight, giving me the impression that, while she's fat, she's probably not obese. But is she smaller than Daphne (besides the fact that she's taller)? And Daphne doesn't see herself as obese, and clearly neither does her husband, but she's very short, and one of her final weights mentioned (139) still seems like a lot. And how does Hania compare to them? Despite her amazing beauty, which Meyers never fails to mention, how tall is she? She apparently looks amazing after the "fat mansion," but she was never as fat as Alice and Daphne to begin with. And then she gains it all back! I'm sure all these women are lovely, but I couldn't picture them consistently, and this hurt my immersion.

I understand what Meyers was going for, and if she had trimmed down a lot of the "big issues" and discussions that they women had amongst themselves (and maybe some of the characters... there are a lot of people to keep track of!), she might have almost had it.

I have very conflicting emotions about this book. Waisted focuses mainly on two women, Alice and Daphne, who meet at a weight-loss camp. The very first sentence of the book angered me so much that I almost stopped right then and there -- "Everyone hated a fat woman, but none more than she hated herself." I stopped, took a breath and told myself to keep going.

The camp turned out to be hell on earth. Severe caloric intake, grueling and excessive exercise and over the top cruelty were the methods used to force the women at Privation to lose weight. I cringed throughout much of the parts at the camp but I also know that was the point. To what end will people go to be skinny? Turns out, they'll go pretty far as we see in the book.

Alice and Daphne, along with their friend/roommate Hania, embark on a quest to escape the camp and expose the evils behind the scenes. What they find on the outside was not at all what they were expecting. This is when the book began to win me back over. We follow Alice and Daphne as they start to focus on who they are outside of the number on the scale. They begin to see themselves through the eyes of their family and start to learn how to speak up and out and examine the messages they send to others by focusing solely on how much they weigh.

Once the turn around began, I loosened my shoulders and exhaled out some of the anger. I was convinced the author hated fat people but as I exhaled, I realized that this is often how fat is portrayed in the world. As Meyers began to develop the characters in their new post-camp realities, some messages about self-love and body positivity began to appear, redeeming the story for me.

However, I can't really recommend the book to anyone who reads for fun. It was difficult to read about how much the world hates fat people and as someone who has had weight issues my entire life, I don't need to see it when I'm trying to relax. The synopsis calls the story provocative and wildly entertaining. I'll give it the provocative because woah nelly but the entertaining part I fail to see.

Waisted is out tomorrow, May 21, 2019. I give it an overall 2 out of 5 stars and am not recommending it.

Such a powerfully written book about how women perceive themselves in relation to their weight. Very eye opening and thought provoking. 5 Stars.

This book just didn't work for me. I think that this is a very sensitive and important topic that should be discussed but I didn't find that this format worked in this situation. I found many parts of this book came off as insensitive and judgemental. People struggle with weight and body image issues for a variety of reasons and I felt that was not reflected here.. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for a copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

It started as an adulterous affair but when Tia gets pregnant, Nathan is shocked back to his wife and family and wants Tia to have an abortion. She ends up having the baby and giving her up for adoption to a couple that she chose, Caroline and Peter. Five years later, Tia sends Nathan pictures of their daughter that Caroline has sent and that starts a fire that Juliette, (Nathan's wife) starts when she sees the pictures. It's a bit much but interesting nonetheless.

Vleugellam is een overrompelende debuutroman die op ontroerende en schrijnende wijze duidelijk maakt hoe een traumatische jeugdervaring diepe wonden maakt en blijvende littekens achterlaat. Hoewel Lulu en Merry zeer verschillende keuzes maken bij het verwerken van hun verdriet, weten ze één ding heel zeker: ze kunnen nooit meer zonder elkaar.

I read "Accidents of Marriage" immediately after finishing Meyers' earlier book, "The Comfort of Lies." I was unimpressed with "The Comfort of Lies" but had bought both books together, unable to decide which storyline held more appeal, and since I thought I saw promise in the first, I went ahead with reading "Accidents of Marriage." I wish I had not wasted the time.

First and foremost, this book might as well be a continuation of "The Comfort of Lies." The setting is the same (right down to the specific neighborhoods in Boston, not even just the city itself), the characters are the same, and they're doing only very slightly different things. I honestly kept waiting for characters from "The Comfort of Lies" to make cameo appearances while shopping for groceries or something.

There are main characters in both books who do social work; everybody seems to live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston; all the women are using Xanax and other drugs inappropriately; both books flirt with religion, particularly mixed marriages; token bits of Jewish culture are thrown into both stories; the characters have complicated relationships with their parents that are mentioned, but never explored; gold filigree lockets (three different lockets) are mentioned between the two books; both books have a character named 'Caroline' being called 'Caro'; the same obscure children's book (The Family Nobody Wanted) was mentioned in BOTH books . . . I could go on and on. At one point in each book, the characters eat at restaurants that have amber drinking glasses. I don't think they're meant to be the same restaurant (though I guess they might have been, but that's a whole different complaint). How common is it really for restaurants to have amber stemware? I can't think of any restaurant I've ever been to (and I'm a foodie!) that had amber glasses. I couldn't decide if the author had just taken the common writers' advice to "write what you know" too literally or had difficulty remembering what she had previously written. In short, if you liked her first book, you'll probably love this one, since she's just put the same characters into a different situation.

As with her earlier work, Meyers' failed to bring her characters to life in this book. It is clear that she has them fully developed in her mind, but they don't come across the page for the reader. Often, she would reveal little facts about her characters in odd places. In the beginning of the book, Maddy, the protagonist (if she can be called that, since she spent a good third of the book in a coma) is portrayed as a typical working mom. There is mention of her making dinners, doing laundry, shuttling the kids to and from activities . . . and then, in one of the very last chapters, we learn that she never bakes (she cooks dinner, but not desserts apparently). This seems so incredibly odd to me (are there really people who cook, but NEVER bake anything?) and it is tossed into the story as though we already know this about Maddy. There are several other instances of this kind of detail being inserted haphazardly into the story far too late in the writing.

On page 272, we learn that Gracie, the youngest daughter, has become obsessed with fantastical stories since her mother's accident and that her grandmother can barely keep up with her desire to read them. This never comes across earlier in the book. In fact, there is no mention, ever, of Gracie reading anything magical, of her needing an "escape" she might get from fantasy, or of her grandmother buying her these books. Yet, the information is tossed in as if the readers should already know this about her. It's stranger still because there are similarly revealed bits of information about Gracie reading a biography of Florence Nightingale and she dresses as a nurse for Halloween. Either scenario is plausible--a little girl becoming obsessed with caretakers after her mother spends months in the hospital or, a little girl needing the escape a fantastical world could provide--but together, they seem to disagree with one another. After the first and only mention of the fantasy books, I was left thinking, 'wait, what? I thought Gracie was into nurses.'

There are numerous references to past events that have never been mentioned before. This is a common writer's tool and normally would provide needed backstory or ambiance to a scene, but the way in which they are spliced into this story is jarring. They always seem out of place, or as if they are meant to reference something we, the readers, already know about. For example, when Maddy is comatose, Ben talks to her about "anything he thought would reach her," specifically, "how they'd snuck into the bathroom to make love when they'd gone away for that week with her parents and all the kids." I think it's the use of "the" and "that." Instead, the sentence should be: "how they'd snuck into A bathroom to make love when they'd gone away for A week with her parents and all the kids." If it had been phrased in the latter way, it would be clear that the reader doesn't already know about this particular story. I could be nitpicking, but this kind of thing drives me crazy when I'm reading.

I wish I had known before starting this book that the majority of the story would not be narrated by Maddy, but by Ben (Maddy's husband) and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Emma. If I wanted to read a book from a fourteen-year-old's perspective, I would shop the young adult section. Other readers seemed to enjoy Emma, but I found her to be a whiny, entitled and utterly boring little brat. I was wholeheartedly disgusted when Meyers' chose to write her as a budding prescription drug addict. (Her initial foray into Ritalin was another item that was tossed into the story as if we should already know about it.)

I shouldn't have been surprised though, since the characters' in Meyers' last book also waxed poetic about the glories of prescription drugs (and alcohol). None can top Maddy, though, who keeps pill bottles stashed all over her house to make her feel "safe" in her mildly-abusive marriage. At one point near the end of the book, we're provided with a complete list of the drugs Maddy stashes: Ambien, Lorazepam, Valium, Klonopin, Xanax, Lunesta, Percoset, and Librium. I'm married to a pharmacist, who assures me that there really are people who take this many mood stabilizers and sedatives, but I found it wholly unbelievable (and disgusting). Meyers' writes about the bitter taste of Xanax with relish and her characters apparently need anti-anxiety meds to get through sex with their husbands . . . yet none of them end up divorced by the end of the book.

I found it particularly disturbing that only the women are written as drug-abusers. Is this what Meyers' thinks the average woman is like? Not all of us need to be heavily medicated to get through life. Nathan (from "The Comfort of Lies") and Ben both have reason to take anti-depressants and I'd almost support Ben in a decision to take something that would help with his unstable moods, but not one male character is written taking anything more serious than aspirin; the men don't even drink heavily.

Ben is a totally unlikable character and yet you're forced to experience at least half the story from his perspective. I think Meyers did a good job getting into his mindset and portraying the way he sees his side of every rant, but it didn't make him any more tolerable. Even though he's a successful lawyer, someone whose profession absolutely requires him to remain cool and reasonable under intense pressure, he's unable to control his temper at all when with his family. I'll touch more on his outbursts in a moment, but I wanted to point out that he is written throughout the book as being wildly mercurial. At first, I made notes of all the times he abruptly changed his mind/mood, (*SPOILER ALERT* For example: going from gazing lovingly at a picture of his wife to having an affair with an intern in the space of three paragraphs and, in one scene, mentions wanting desperately to be with his kids instead of at work, only to "happily" hand them off for the night to their grandparents a paragraph later) but after reviewing, I think perhaps the author did this intentionally, as a character trait. If so, it's actually quite well done.

In the earliest chapters of the book, Ben's worst outburst is described as an incident when he threw or kicked a bottle of liquid laundry detergent across a room, smashing it into a wall. Meyers' writes that Ben "scared himself" with that incident and afterward made small efforts to improve his temper. But, later in the book (actually peppered throughout the book) many more incidents are mentioned where his tantrums were far more severe and dangerous. He apparently punched their kitchen counter so hard that it cracked and had to be replaced; deliberately grabbed an heirloom of Maddy's and threw it across the room, shattering it; shakes Caleb (his youngest child) violently, to the point that Maddy had to intervene to protect her son; and also chases Emma (oldest daughter) through the house, yelling and ranting, because she broke a pen. How is the laundry detergent worse than these things, especially the child abuse?! I think Meyers' hadn't yet invented these other incidents in her mind when she wrote about the detergent and then failed to go back and correct that scene so that Maddy describes one of these, obviously more serious, tantrums as the "worst."

Other things that bothered me: Maddy professes to still love Ben while he is abusing her and his children (though not physically) and despite needing drugs to make love to him. I just don't buy that. It would have been better to write her afraid to leave/be on her own/"fail" at marriage, anything more plausible than believing she is still in love with him.

Gracie is constantly being called fat, even though she is described as being only mildly chubby or stocky. All the female characters are obsessed with their weight and fitness, while the men are described as "softening around the middle" and likewise. I hate that the author is further indoctrinating women with the belief that they must battle against every ounce gained while they're husbands can become comfortably pudgy without censure. Way to empower women and teach them to love their bodies!

Maddy's sister Vanessa is the worst cliche I think I have ever encountered in a book. She was absolutely obnoxious and the things she says/does would make more sense if she was the stereotypical catty "frenemy" rather than Maddy's allegedly-devoted sister.

I am something of a name nerd, so Meyers' naming choices bothered me a great deal, in both books. I could not stand the juxtaposition of super commonplace names like Maddy, Ben, Emma, Caleb, Gracie, Jake, Anne, Zach, from all of the main characters to obscure/unusual names like Vanessa, Ursula, and Melody. Ursula and Melody?! How do those two sibling names go together at all? The only connection seems to be an obscure reference to Disney's The Little Mermaid; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that is exactly where Meyers' came up with the names. I also absolutely hated that Maddy's best friend Kath is called only "Kath." Is she Katherine, Kathleen, Kathy? In my mind, it's fine to use nicknames in dialogue, or if the name is a plot element, but Kath was called exclusively by her nickname for no apparent reason. And, as I mentioned earlier, Meyers' seems to have a real love of the Carolines-called-Caro.

The investigation into the car accident was scattered through the pages in bits and snatches of conversation. I believe Meyers' wanted to build some suspense for her readers, hoping we might worry about whether or not Ben would be tried for driving to endanger. Instead, it came across as an afterthought and it dragged on far too long. (*SPOILER ALERT*) It was months after the accident that Ben found out the other driver was drunk, when, really, that would have come to light immediately after the accident. I thought the whole investigation was trumped-up drama, unnecessary to the plot, and Ben's easy escape from any culpability was likewise an easy escape for the author.

In short, this book is a far inferior effort to Meyer's earlier work, "The Comfort of Lies." I wouldn't recommend either book to anyone I know and I will never attempt reading another book written by the author. Again with this book, I think it's intended audience is the chick-lit reader who wants something with a little more depth and that is definitely not me. I also cannot help dreading anyone other than an American reading this book and feeling as though they have gained insight into American lives from it--dear lord, please let the rest of the world know that not all American women are like these characters!

Two stars because I managed to finish it, rather than tossing it aside.

"The Comfort of Lies" is not the worst book I have ever read. It's not even the worst book I have read recently. But I would not recommend it.

I was led to this book via glowing reviews, one from someone whose opinion I usually trust in regard to books. I wish I had paid more attention to the censorious reviews, though, because I might have realized before buying that the book is chick-lit, or very near to it.

I actually bought this book and Meyers' newest work, "Accidents of Marriage" at the same time, unable to decide which book's storyline held more appeal. Although unimpressed with this book, I thought I saw promise and the reviews for "Accidents of Marriage" were actually a bit better, so I read both. I'll save my more detailed review for the second book.

As an author, Meyers' suffers from a common problem: although it's clear she has fully developed her characters in her mind, she fails to bring them to life for her readers. We are left with shells of characters and stereotypes.

Although this book ostensibly has five main characters, Tia is perhaps the true protagonist. She's the most featured, and yet, her entire character is a vapid cliche. A woman who, despite a loving mother, an education, and a professional job, can't manage to get her life together. She spends years in love with and pining for a man who does not love her back. She gives up her baby for adoption and then regrets the decision, spending the latter half of the book scheming to get her SIX-YEAR-OLD daughter back (don't get me started on how unbelievably awful this is and how unlikable it makes Tia). The author missed an opportunity to explore the tumultuous months of turmoil that would lead a mother who has a job and home, if not a father for her child, to give up her baby by completely skipping over the decision-making process. The story jumps from the reveal of Tia's pregnancy to her second trimester, when the decision has already been made. If the author wanted to write about what happens *after* the baby is given away, the book should have started there.

Juliette, the wronged wife, is a Xanax-popping "super mom" with a successful career and happy, happy children. Her home is a jewelbox of family life and though she's married to a self-centered cheater, she has forgiven him . . . or wait, actually she hasn't. Actually, she spent the majority of the book berating her husband for a mistake he made six years earlier. I wont go into the details because it would spoil the story for anyone who might actually want to read this, but Juliette makes some wildly inappropriate decisions over the course of this book, things that, in real life, would be considered insane. I couldn't stand her.

Nathan is just a shell of a character for most of the book. We learn most everything about him through others' impressions of him and these are revealed piece-meal throughout the book, so we're still learning a great deal about him long after we have already formed our opinions of his character. It felt disjointed.

Caroline is the only character I felt really might have been interesting and I wish we had learned more about her. Her husband, Peter, is poorly developed and the only one of the five main characters that never tells any of the story. Interested as I was in Caroline, I would have liked more of his thoughts about her and their marriage.

All in all, I didn't find anything egregiously awful about this book (except perhaps Juliette. I really did HATE Juliette.), but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know and will not keep the book. I think it was written for chick-lit readers who want something more. Fans of Jodi Picoult may like it, as it seems to be in a similar vein.

his novel explores the impact of domestic violence on the two young daughters of the family. The violence escalates to the point in which the girl's mother is murdered by their father. The novel explores the relationship which each daughter has with their father who is subsequently incarcarcarated, but who still attempts to maintain a close connection with his children. The children react to this in different ways, the older one who rejects the stigma of a murderer's daughter maintains the illusion that both her parents are dead. The younger girl, who was affected more both physically and emotionally continues to visit her father regularly while struggling to make sense of his behaviour and the impact this still has on her life. The climax of the book, in which the girl's secret is publicly revealed, forces each of the characters to accept the brutality which they have experienced and to make choices about how their lives will continue. A thought provoking read

This is a book not only about being over weight but the need to accept what you look like on the outside has nothing to do with who you are on the inside. The struggle of losing weight and keeping it off and what some women are willing to do to succeed.
I think almost every women sometime in there life can identify with this book.
This was a very fast read for me. The 2 main characters had great personalities and came from totally different backgrounds. I felt like this book is not really about being over weight and trying to lose it but really it was about loving yourself for who you are. Great story!

Another enjoyable read by this author. Loosely based on the Madoff scandal. Delves into the family dynamics of the creator of the Ponzi scheme.

Accidents of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers is a heart wrenching and insightful novel about the devastating effects of living with someone who is verbally abusive and prone to violent outbursts resulting from poor anger management. The consequences are oftentimes tragic and this eye-opening, poignant story is a timely reminder that anyone can become a victim of domestic violence.

Maddy and Ben are juggling the demands of parenthood with demanding, high stress careers. Maddy, a social worker, is the main caregiver of the couple's three children, fourteen year old Emma, nine year old Gracie and seven year old Caleb. She is wrung out and exhausted by trying to keep up with household duties, the kid's frenetic schedules and her emotionally draining job. Maddy is always on edge, waiting to find out which version of Ben is going to return home each night: will it be the loving and devoted husband? Or will it be the derisive, condescending husband whose verbal abuse often ends in physical, violent explosions of anger? After a couple of days that are more stressful than normal, Ben's anger boils over into road rage that results in a horrible car accident that leaves Maddy in a coma. The doctors are cautiously optimistic about her eventual recovery, but in the meantime, the family slowly disintegrates under the stresses of everyday life and the terrible uncertainty of Maddy's future.

As a social worker, no one knows the warming signs of abusive relationships better than Maddy, but it is amazing how blinded she is to Ben's destructive behavior. She makes excuses, blames herself and carefully censors herself in an effort to keep from provoking his temper. She goes so far as to point out that he has an anger management problem and provides him with information to try to help his anger under control. Maddy has moments of introspection where she admits that he has problems but instead of taking the advice she gives her clients, she never seriously considers leaving him.

Ben is a self-centered narcissist who bullies and belittles Maddy into compliance. Although they both have fulltime careers, Ben deems his the most important and he refuses to help Maddy manage the children's hectic schedules or take on any household responsibilities. Ben works long hours and despite his frequent absences, he is hypercritical of Maddy's parenting decisions. He is incapable of accepting responsibility for his actions and in the aftermath of the car accident, Ben repeatedly downplays his role in the accident.

Ben and Maddy's children are the unintended victims of their parents' dysfunctional relationship but the extent of the damage is not seen until after the accident. As the oldest, Emma is forced into taking care of her younger siblings and household duties while Maddy is in the hospital. She loves Gracie and Caleb, but as the days stretch into weeks, she is resentful of the responsibility she shoulders and she begins looking for relief from the unending stress in all the wrong places. Poor Gracie and Caleb are lonely, confused and scared as they try to understand the drama unfolding around them.

Accidents of Marriage is an emotionally compelling family drama that is raw, gritty and breathtakingly realistic. The characters are well-drawn with all too human flaws and imperfections. The storyline is absolutely heartbreaking but Randy Susan Meyers deftly handles difficult topics with an amazing amount of sensitivity. A riveting and highly complex novel that I highly recommend.