This is a sweeping family saga that hit me in all the right places in my reading journey at the moment. I loved that we got a full, complete story told from multiple points of view, yet it is also only 288 pages. It takes some solid writing to convey a developed tale in under 300 pages, and Lange does an amazing job with it in her debut novel.
It's the story of a big Irish family of which Sunday is the only girl. Their mother passed away just a couple of years previously, and five years before, Sunday moved away from all of them in New York to head to LA. She left behind a confused boyfriend, Kale, and a fairly dysfunctional, yet close-knit family. Fast forward five years and Sunday is in the hospital after a drunk driving accident, the police call her brother Denny who is listed as her next of kin. She comes home with him to heal and has to deal with the aftermath of what she left behind and finally needs to give an explanation for what happened.
There are so many times when reading a book I kind of roll my eyes when a "big secret" is revealed. It is typically either revealed too late to make a difference in the book or the secret isn't much of a big deal overall. However, this book defies the norm and actually has a decent secret revealed at the exact right time. How it affects each of the family members and reaches into the present from the past in different ways is well composed and engaging.
Highly recommend this debut family saga. I listened to most of it as an audiobook and although there is only one narrator for multiple points of view (kind of a refreshing change from the large cast audiobooks as of late) she does a fantastic job conveying each of the many characters and I never felt lost.
It's the story of a big Irish family of which Sunday is the only girl. Their mother passed away just a couple of years previously, and five years before, Sunday moved away from all of them in New York to head to LA. She left behind a confused boyfriend, Kale, and a fairly dysfunctional, yet close-knit family. Fast forward five years and Sunday is in the hospital after a drunk driving accident, the police call her brother Denny who is listed as her next of kin. She comes home with him to heal and has to deal with the aftermath of what she left behind and finally needs to give an explanation for what happened.
There are so many times when reading a book I kind of roll my eyes when a "big secret" is revealed. It is typically either revealed too late to make a difference in the book or the secret isn't much of a big deal overall. However, this book defies the norm and actually has a decent secret revealed at the exact right time. How it affects each of the family members and reaches into the present from the past in different ways is well composed and engaging.
Highly recommend this debut family saga. I listened to most of it as an audiobook and although there is only one narrator for multiple points of view (kind of a refreshing change from the large cast audiobooks as of late) she does a fantastic job conveying each of the many characters and I never felt lost.