Books & Java

What We Keep

by Elizabeth Berg

Synopsis:

Do you ever really know your mother, your daughter, the people in your family? In this rich and rewarding new novel a reunion between two sisters and their mother reveals how the secrets and complexities of the past have shaped the lives of the women in a family.
 
Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time, a series of dramatic events--beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor--divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life, and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.

My  Review:

I enjoyed this book very much. It wasn't "GREAT" however. It dragged a bit at the beginning but well worth for the ending. I would rate it closer to 3.5 stars only because I think that the mother's character could have been further explored. I really felt for the mom. I felt that she was greatly misunderstood and judged much too harshly. This book is about daughters, sisters, mothers and friends and how complex those relationships can be. What one person perceives in any combination of those relationships is more often than not not the same thing the others also see. Relationships are so much about how we interpret people's actions and behaviors. The whole time, I thought about how when I was a kid, I saw my own mother as solely a mom - not as a woman, a person, a human being with her own thoughts, regrets, feelings, emotions. It was not until I became a mom myself that I realized that she wasn't perfect and above all that she was human. She made mistakes and have her very own feelings, desires in life and opinions that did not necessarily coincide with mine and that is okay. I feel that in my mom's last few years (as she recently passed away)I tried to view her as a person first and she appreciated that. I didn't judge her actions (well, I tried not to) as to what I expected her (as a mother to me) to do or say. It made me understand her better and really appreciate her more. It's tough to stay on a pedestal, specially the one we hold our parents on for most of our lives. I think it even makes us better parents when we accept that our own parents made mistakes. My mom, as the Ginny's and Marla's mom in the book, loved her daughters. She just didn't love her life and she needed to find herself and her place in life in order to be happy or it would have consumed her and made her bitter. What I did love, very much as a matter of fact, about Elizabeth Berg's book was that at the end you see life does not come in a nicely tied package with a big ribbon on it. It isn't so much a present that always brings us joy but it is a journey that is unique to every person and people's choices (wrong or right) are part of that journey.