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5.0 out of 5 starsYou ought to meet these characters.
April 5, 2018
I took this book with me on some recent travels after it was recommended to me by a few friends posting on Facebook. This book would qualify as a page turner for others; you could likely sit down twice or three times and finish the whole thing. I happen to be a [very] slow reader, though, so I had the experience of reading the first half of it on my way overseas, and eagerly waiting until the end of my trip so I could read the second half on the flight back.
What kept me thinking about this novel during the interim days were its six richly drawn characters. As I met each of the characters and observed their stories harmonizing, tangling, and colliding, I heard Warady giving voice to some of my own experiences and relationships. I've also felt this way with other contemporary authors like Jonathan Franzen and Junot Diaz—who help me see myself in the people who live in the worlds they write. Warady makes deft work of shining a light on the these characters' inner lives and showing everything in a poignant and honest manner. For me, his success lies in the ways that this particularly telling helped me revisit parts of my own with more humor and deeper compassion.
In many ways, I'm still curious about some of these characters—I wish I would have had more "time" on the page with Chloe and Emily. I was less concerned about some of the other characters like Donald's work colleagues in their adult lives. Still, it's a feat of good character writing that I am fond (and a bit concerned) about these people, and I'm grateful that Warady made the introduction. In the meantime, I am happy to walk away from this book carrying Warady's insights on finding love, finding disappointment, and finding ourselves older and younger in surprising ways.
