Mary Curran Hackett (1906–1989)

Pretty sappy. I was misled by a brief review into thinking this was a story about a mother and her very ill child. While that is certainly a portion of the story, it is really a tale about a woman's faith. The references to her Catholic practices were intrusive.
It seems very unrealistic that a renowned heart specialist (MD) would take a vacation from his practice on short notice in order to essentially be a nurse to a young child. There was nothing that he really did, medical wise, that warranted his presence. I know we are supposed to believe he is doing it because of a romantic interest and because he sees his own son in Colm, but it didn't convince me.
Catherine and her brother had pretty serious emotional problems (anger, alcoholism, co-dependence), and the characters made no attempts to address them. Perhaps it isn't surprising, since the main character is based on the author's own life.… (más)

This is definitely a "feel good" novel that could be considered "sappy."

What I liked about the novel:
I enjoyed the beginning and how Sean was granted a second chance at life. I loved the part in the book where Sean, a self proclaimed loner, suddenly has friends that always seem to be showing up to hang out with him. I enjoyed the candid conversations between the characters when they let down their masks and were real with one another. Some of those conversations struck a personal chord with me. I thoroughly enjoyed these "learning moments" throughout the book. I liked how the author brought God into the book without the book becoming overly religious.

What I didn't like about the novel: I didn't like the fact that the book was pretty boring overall. Also some of the characters personal problems and actions seemed too coincidental. The author seemed to ramble on and on about certain topics like how one event effects all others, how we all matter and how destiny brought all these friends together at this time. Also, all these characters seemed like they were an expert on each others lives. This made the novel overly sappy for my tastes.

I received this novel for free from LibraryThing through their Early Reviewers giveaway.… (más)