When a devastating house fire kills June's boyfriend, ex-husband, daughter and future son in law, she leaves her small Connecticut town and travels to the Pacific coast to try and find solace. Did you ever have a family tells June's story and that of the people connected to her and the tragedy in a series of chapters voiced by different characters in the story.
Overall it's a cleverly written book. It has had exceptional reviews and although
I did like it there were a few things that I disliked.
I found the pacing of the book to be a little uneven and there were some lengthy descriptive passages that I felt were unneeded. My main criticism though is that the characters weren't fleshed out enough. With the exception of the very well crafted Lydia ('a small town Elizabeth Taylor' - love that) I didn't feel that I got to know the characters and so I didn't get emotionally involved with the story. On paper this sounds as if it would be a depressing read but I found that I really took the tale at face value because of the undeveloped characters.
Don't get me wrong it is a good book but it has had so many rave reviews that I think this led me to expect something more than it was.
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