The cover of this book is misleading -- I think that's upsetting a lot of readers, and that's probably fair. While the book IS set mainly on a beach in Maine, there's not too much that's lighthearted about this novel. But then, what are you going to show? 4 women angrily glaring at each other?
On the other hand, this book is exactly the kind of beach read that I do like. Good drama, easy to get wrapped up in, and a moving story. Three generations of women share the chapters in this book, and the moment that I became impressed with this novel was the moment that I realized I had sympathy for each woman. As readers, we naturally want to draw ourselves to a character to experience the world of the story. What was great about this was that at times, I found myself lining up with each character -- even the awful ones. That's a hell of a hat trick. Very good writing.
And, I don't know. It's just interesting to think of the moments where you leave your family behind to move away from what ails you about them. And if you can come back to it but still let it go. A great book. And actually a nice beach read, too. 9780307595126 I felt like I read a different book/story than the one the jacket made me believe I was going to get. I didn't like many of the characters AT ALL, I don't even understand how these people got together every year at the cottage when they seemingly hated one another for so long. I don't know..too much to get into and I'm a very lazy reviewer, but while I don't feel like every character I come to know should be happy all the time, I can't stand reading about the most miserable people on the planet and that's what most of these people felt like to me. The matriarch was a hateful bitch and I didn't feel one ounce of sympathy toward her when her secret was revealed. She was horrible from youth to adulthood, why would I feel bad for her at all? (I got the feeling that as readers we were supposed to feel bad for her but maybe I'm wrong). The secret she carried was from young adulthood so it's not like I could even feel like, Ohhh, now I see why she's so miserable, poor thing!, since she revealed herself to be a pretty shitty person even as a child/teenager.
The writing itself was not bad, I just wish I could have cared about these people and their lives and outcomes more. That is to say, at all. I think Maggie was the only one I actually cared about.
edit: I think it's Kathleen that I liked, not Maggie. I liked the black sheep, that's all I remember now. Reading the stock description of this book makes me think I meant to say Kathleen, not Maggie in my review. Maggie, from what I recall, was fairly spineless but it's been so long since I read this that I can't recall strongly liking or disliking her. I don't care for spineless women, though, in general. Kathleen was the black sheep because she was the only one who stood up for herself, though she was a bit of a bitch. Ann Marie was okay but came off rather foolishly and we all know what I think about Alice already (she's the matriarch). 9780307595126 Absolutely loved this book. I thoroughly enjoyed Commencement, and Sullivan did not disappoint with her latest novel, Maine. I truly loved the characters in this book and felt invested in them, and enjoyed the story-telling aspects that took us into the earlier part of the 20th century. I read it on my Kindle, where I have the opportunity to highlight passages or phrases that move me, and found myself doing it frequently with this book- mostly in relation to personal experiences. I found myself nodding along with the characters at several points, which usually leads me to label something a good read. I was also able to find myself in each character, at least in some small way, which is a credit to Sullivan's immense writing talent.
I read this book in a day, during the busiest time of year in my job, because it was that good and I couldn't put it down. Now I will just have to wait until Sullivan writes another..... 9780307595126 Note to Good Reads: I hate that you don't have half stars! Two stars seems a bit too critical, but three stars feels too much to award this book. It's finely written, and I loved the construct of offering differing points of view from three generations of women in one family. The author balances this juxtaposition well, effortlessly switching from one character's voice to another. And the great success of the book, for me, is that the author illustrates so well how no one can really ever know another, nor fully understand them. Unfortunately, I think she was a little too good at it b/c ultimately, none of these characters really alter their views of each other in any meaningful way. There's very little character growth, which may be accurate to real life, but frankly makes for a frustrating novel. I kept wanting these women to connect, even just the littlest bit. But we have to wait more than half the book before they are even at the same place at the same time. I thought surely, once that transpired, that something would actually happen...but nothing does, really. The same old patterns are fallen into, and the same old judgments prevail. The book is well-written with richly drawn characters that aren't particularly likeable, yet are each fascinating in their own way...and I found that interesting and readable, but also ultimately unsatisfying. I wish the author could have allowed at least some of the characters to connect a little more than they do. I think it would have made for a richer book, without sacrificing the main theme. My two cents. 9780307595126 Families are the places we share the most happy times and the most miserable times, the greatest joys and the most pain, places where people lift us up to become our best selves and tear us down to our worst. Maine is a book about families.
There is wisdom about families in this book. Here’s a little about having a child:
“No one had told Kathleen about the dark parts of motherhood. You gave birth and people brought over the sweetest little shoes and pale pink swaddling blankets. But then you were alone, your body trying to heal itself while your mind went numb. There was a mix of joy and the purest love, coupled with real boredom and occasional rage. It got easier as the kids got older, but it never got easy.”
We who have raised children know the truth of this. Powerful.
And then there is this thoughtful look at why families aren’t always helpful:
“But maybe your family could never give you the perfect response, the kindest reply. Maybe their vision of you was too tied up in their hopes and fears for them to ever see you as just you.”
Best of all, I loved these thoughts on marriage:
‘”You all seem to think that you should marry someone when you feel this intense emotion, which you call love. And then you expect that the love will fade over time, as life gets harder. When what you should do is find yourself a nice enough fellow and let real love develop over years and births and deaths and so on.”
Very moving saga full of secrets and lies and cruelties and, most of all, the love that combine to make a family.
9780307595126
In her best-selling debut, Commencement, J. Courtney Sullivan explored the complicated and contradictory landscape of female friendship. Now, in her highly anticipated second novel, Sullivan takes us into even richer territory, introducing four unforgettable women who have nothing in common but the fact that, like it or not, they’re family.
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.
As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other. Maine By J. Courtney Sullivan
REVIEW ☆ TEXASBEERGUIDE.COM Ø J. Courtney Sullivan
I had to stop about 30% into the book (I'm reading it on a Kindle and it doesn't show page numbers but percentage) because well, it's just not very good writing. ...The author makes such a crucial mistake in writing which is she fails to SHOW what's happening and instead TELLS you what's happening. Therefore NOTHING HAS BEEN HAPPENING! All I've been reading is the back story of the first two characters, Alice and Kathleen. Don't tell me Alice is a self-conscious, judgmental, unsupportive mother. Show me her carefully getting ready in the morning, going for a walk, weighing herself, let me read a conversation she is currently having with one of her children where she judges them. I don't need the author to explain every single thought going through a character's head and the clear cut reason for their actions. Part of the joy of reading is that I get to figure that out for myself. Be subtle sometimes! I always try to improve my own writing and this book was a good example of how telling and not showing ruins the entire story. 9780307595126 Blah.
I know these ladies. I'm a Masshole with a big, multi-class Irish Catholic family that spent at least a week every summer up in Wells. I'm related to these characters.
Except for I'm not, because even the Alice in my life is infinitely more complex than this. So is the Ann Marie. And they have hearts. These characters are BLOODLESS, it's infuriating. They keep showing up for their 400 pages, never straying from their caricature base, never doing much of anything.
Digging deep, I guess I could muster up some positive things to say about the presentation of the generational differences between these women and their concepts of their motherhood, but it's all drowned out by too much blah blah blah.
One thing that drove me particularly insane? The aftermath of the house reveal, and how the son was like Oh well, she's got a will, lawyer says there's nothing we can do. BULLLLLLLLLLSH*T lazy plot device, what family wouldn't start tearing each other apart for a 2 million+ spread? I guess the story could have become too interesting if the author went there.
And why was there a middle sister who lived in JP? Why did she even exist, other than to add to Alice's brood to justify her misery? To throw another gay grandchild in the mix? To get some more muddied Catholicism shout-out points?
So many extraneous characters that were useless. So many. And yet nothing really happens. BLAH.
9780307595126 I have now read all of J. Courtney Sullivan's novels and I gotta say I enjoyed this one. All her novels tie into being an American of Irish descent. I really like how she's always reminding herself her ancestors came from somewhere else. Her characters always have the Catholic faith instilled into them even with their evident flaws and dark pasts; the struggle to be good but still hating most of your family and loving them enough to come back. She has a Maeve Binchy sort of style except Sullivan's writing is usually in the East Coast in the United States versus Ireland. (Except Maeve Binchy is in my top 10 & she is an original)
Maine is written in chapters of the main characters. There is Alice, the matriarch. Ann Marie, the daughter in law to Alice. Kathleen, Alice's daughter that can't get over her past and for the most part hates her family. Maggie, who is Alice's granddaughter and Kathleen's daughter. Each one with a voice into the past and present. The thing that binds them, besides being a family, is the house with a private beach in Maine during the summers. The story alternates between WWII, before Alice married Daniel and lost her sister to the Cocoanut Grove fire, and the present day.
The characters irked me and I hated them sometimes but then I'd see their point and I liked them again. Kathleen got on my nerves the most.
Fast, easy read. Was very entertaining. Not a chicklit. I personally like stories with family differences. It is kinda like peeking into someones window and seeing the truth play out. 9780307595126 I found this book highly readable but ultimately unsatisfying. Sullivan is a talented storyteller but there is little substance in her writing. I was thinking about how Jonathan Franzen (and many of his reviewers) were widely criticized. Why, people asked, do his books get so much attention when they are just domestic novels, not unlike so many similar novels written by women? But I believe Jonathan Franzen is a wonderful example of an author using the domestic setting to explore powerful ideas about modern life. Other examples that come to mind are Jennifer Haigh and Anna Quindlen. The world and characters created by Sullivan in Maine had potential for similar exploration but lack of analysis and cohesion left them meaningless. This lack of substance is particularly exemplified by the ending; I felt like Sullivan reached her desired word count and then stopped writing. Initially I planned to recommend this novel as I did enjoy much of the story. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies, loose ends and overall shallowness have caused it to sour in my mind. 9780307595126 I thought a book with the title Maine would portray the state as an integral part of the story. However, this book could have taken place anywhere. The author did little to set the story in Maine other than citing a few local references. The characters were not well-developed and I found myself only mildly curious about them. The plot was thin and predictable, with Catholic guilt, Irish alcoholism, and sibling rivalry as major themes. Despite the dust-jacket blurb, I didn't find anything wickedly funny or achingly sad in this book. Some of the dialog, particularly during the '40's flashbacks, was incongruous. Flummoxed is used several times, both in the '40's and current times, for example. The first half of the book focused on the lead-up to Alice's tragic secret and the genesis of her guilt. This secret was the reason for her marriage, her alcoholism and her dissatisfaction with her life, but it took so long to get to this point that I just didn't care, and it was hard to see Alice in a sympathetic light. It seemed as if the author just ran out of things to say and, rather than tie the various plot lines together, crafted a cute you-figure-it-out ending that left me unsatisfied. This book was an exercise in schadenfreude. 9780307595126
