This book made me think about how we categorize things as before/after significant events in our lives. The setting is 1999, so there's the anxiety of the changeover from 99 to Y2K. The three main characters' lies pivot in different ways after finding a boy who'd been attacked. What events have been pivotal in your life? Obviously the pandemic. But do you have a thing that happened to you (or a thing you witnessed) that changed you significantly?

In the end, I thought this book was good but it bummed me out during an already pretty bummer time. So I wasn't in the best mood to appreciate it. I did love the dog, though. The dog was maybe the best part. ( )

This book set in a small Oxfordshire village in 1999 just before the turn of the Millennium starts off with 3 Siblings walking home from School, they find an unconscious boy lying in a field.
They manage to call for help the Boy is taking to Hospital were he slowly recovers.
This incident really affected the 3 Children
The oldest Mathew is determined to find out who attacked Karel he teams up with Tomas who is Karel's elder brother to try and find the attacker.
Zoe also goes looking for the attacker in Oxford she meets an American called Rufus she has an affair with him.
Duncan the youngest Child is determined to find his Birth Mother.
Their Parents Betsy and Hal are slowly drifting apart, Hal is having an affair.

They get to meet Karel he says Thank you but he isnt the same person he used to be.
Book then jumps 8 years later when the Children are young adults. ( )

In this twist on a coming of age story, the Lang children, Matthew, Duncan, and Zoe, find a boy in a field as they are walking home from school. Their father was to pick them up, but when he was late they decided to walk home. They encounter the boy who has been beaten and abused and is near death. Have you ever had circumstances and a chance encounter change your life's direction? The encounter with the boy shapes the way the entire family begins to approach the future. The book is a well written exploration of not just coming of age but of the role chance encounters and unexpected circumstances play in our lives. The characters are good and Livesey builds empathy well. The ongoing mystery of the boy keeps the pages turning as well as ties together the vignets of the Lang family as they grow together and the kids prepare to enter adulthood. ( )

An Assault Alters Young Lives

In Margot Livesey’s ambling and quiet novel, three secondary students, Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan 13, discover a badly injured boy, Karel, in a field as they are walking home from school. They provide him comfort and aid and summon emergency help. The experience sets them off thinking about where they might be headed in their own lives. The novel follows them for a few months after their discovery, devoting alternating chapters to each. Then the novel changes narrative direction by consolidating the characters into successive chapters that deal with a fundraiser, a masquerade where people come dressed as people they admire or wish to have been, and a college art show eight years after the incident in which one, Duncan, exhibits his thesis work, and the narrator relates where they landed in life. Did finding and helping Karel have an effect on their lives? It seems to have in nuanced ways, with each influenced differently and to different degrees.

Finding Karel gives each character’s life a jolt. Matthew, who has in interest in helping people, takes the most intense interest in discovering who hurt Karel and why. He teams up Karel’s brother, a youth burdened by problems, in canvassing for the possible assailant. He also spends time with the police inspector assigned the case. Zoe goes in search of something more personal and stumbles upon an American graduate student in England for research, and a romance begins to form, and she contemplates her young womanhood. Duncan, the youngest, artistic, and an adopted child, develops an intense interest in finding his birth mother, a task he sets off on with the help of his adopted mother, who is a lawyer. He and Zoe also become aware that Hal, their father, is having an affair with another woman, and that it might be why he wasn’t at school to pick them up that day, as he had promised. In the end, all works out, with each of these youths finding a place in the world, though only one seems particularly solid and fulfilled. However, tragedy strikes at least one of the characters.

Now, as to whether you will enjoy this novel. You will if you like family stories and coming of age tales, and if have patience for storytelling that moves at a leisurely pace and that tones down even dramatic events. Oh, and if you have a spot in your heart for dogs, you’ll appreciate the other family adoptee, Lily, who seems capable of taking everyone’s and every situation’s measure. A skillfully rendered work, though many who try it may find it a bit on the somnolent side. ( )

An Assault Alters Young Lives

In Margot Livesey’s ambling and quiet novel, three secondary students, Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan 13, discover a badly injured boy, Karel, in a field as they are walking home from school. They provide him comfort and aid and summon emergency help. The experience sets them off thinking about where they might be headed in their own lives. The novel follows them for a few months after their discovery, devoting alternating chapters to each. Then the novel changes narrative direction by consolidating the characters into successive chapters that deal with a fundraiser, a masquerade where people come dressed as people they admire or wish to have been, and a college art show eight years after the incident in which one, Duncan, exhibits his thesis work, and the narrator relates where they landed in life. Did finding and helping Karel have an effect on their lives? It seems to have in nuanced ways, with each influenced differently and to different degrees.

Finding Karel gives each character’s life a jolt. Matthew, who has in interest in helping people, takes the most intense interest in discovering who hurt Karel and why. He teams up Karel’s brother, a youth burdened by problems, in canvassing for the possible assailant. He also spends time with the police inspector assigned the case. Zoe goes in search of something more personal and stumbles upon an American graduate student in England for research, and a romance begins to form, and she contemplates her young womanhood. Duncan, the youngest, artistic, and an adopted child, develops an intense interest in finding his birth mother, a task he sets off on with the help of his adopted mother, who is a lawyer. He and Zoe also become aware that Hal, their father, is having an affair with another woman, and that it might be why he wasn’t at school to pick them up that day, as he had promised. In the end, all works out, with each of these youths finding a place in the world, though only one seems particularly solid and fulfilled. However, tragedy strikes at least one of the characters.

Now, as to whether you will enjoy this novel. You will if you like family stories and coming of age tales, and if have patience for storytelling that moves at a leisurely pace and that tones down even dramatic events. Oh, and if you have a spot in your heart for dogs, you’ll appreciate the other family adoptee, Lily, who seems capable of taking everyone’s and every situation’s measure. A skillfully rendered work, though many who try it may find it a bit on the somnolent side. ( )