This is the story of the Joseph family: Mick, Elise, and their three sons, Baylor, Waylon and Shay. The father and sons run a roofing business in the town of Mercury, PA while Elise runs the home and is basically invisible, taken for granted by her husband and sons.
Newcomer Marley and her mother, Ruth, arrive in Mercury and Marley inserts herself into the Joseph family, looking for the stability she craves. What follows is an in depth look into the family dynamics and Marley's role to all of the members of the family. I don't want to give too much away, because her position in the family changes all through the book.
So, now for my two cents. This book started off great. I thought it was really going to pull me in. But, then it stared going downhill for me for two reasons. One (and this always irks me in any book), it seemed the author wanted to cram as many problems into the story for everyone as she possibly could. This always makes a story seem unrealistic to me. I understand people go through things, believe me, I've been there myself, but some things seemed like the author felt, "Well, I better throw THIS in, too."
The second thing that REALLY started to bug me as I was struggling to finish was all the characters seemed to think EXTREMELY deeply ALL the time. This was particularly annoying to me when Marley was only 19 in part of the story but was portrayed to be this wise old soul and psychoanalyzing everyone at every turn. I don't know. I guess there are definitely mature 19 year old kids, and I know we all dig deep sometimes but ALL the characters seemed to be doing it constantly, so no wonder they all seemed exhausted.
Marley was awfully assuming too, like she just had to be/wanted to be some kind of "savior" for this family when nobody asked her to. Also, she really overstepped with Shay, especially in the scenario when she had to go to the school for him. I totally get taking up for someone and helping out but screaming about how he was "her boy" and all was just over the top. Honestly, now that I think about it, I really can't think of anyone that was likable in this story, except maybe Ruth, who had sense and got out of town to live a peaceful life.
Definitely a family drama, but way too dramatically written for me. As always, you may love it and I hope you do.
Newcomer Marley and her mother, Ruth, arrive in Mercury and Marley inserts herself into the Joseph family, looking for the stability she craves. What follows is an in depth look into the family dynamics and Marley's role to all of the members of the family. I don't want to give too much away, because her position in the family changes all through the book.
So, now for my two cents. This book started off great. I thought it was really going to pull me in. But, then it stared going downhill for me for two reasons. One (and this always irks me in any book), it seemed the author wanted to cram as many problems into the story for everyone as she possibly could. This always makes a story seem unrealistic to me. I understand people go through things, believe me, I've been there myself, but some things seemed like the author felt, "Well, I better throw THIS in, too."
The second thing that REALLY started to bug me as I was struggling to finish was all the characters seemed to think EXTREMELY deeply ALL the time. This was particularly annoying to me when Marley was only 19 in part of the story but was portrayed to be this wise old soul and psychoanalyzing everyone at every turn. I don't know. I guess there are definitely mature 19 year old kids, and I know we all dig deep sometimes but ALL the characters seemed to be doing it constantly, so no wonder they all seemed exhausted.
Marley was awfully assuming too, like she just had to be/wanted to be some kind of "savior" for this family when nobody asked her to. Also, she really overstepped with Shay, especially in the scenario when she had to go to the school for him. I totally get taking up for someone and helping out but screaming about how he was "her boy" and all was just over the top. Honestly, now that I think about it, I really can't think of anyone that was likable in this story, except maybe Ruth, who had sense and got out of town to live a peaceful life.
Definitely a family drama, but way too dramatically written for me. As always, you may love it and I hope you do.