Customer Reviews

Belonging

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of those books where I was completely caught up in the story. It is definitely a LAUGH and CRY book. If I knew how, I would plead with OPRAH to make it her next pick. This is the first I've read from Nancy Thayer and I hope she is currently involved with her NEXT offering. I'm also in the process of searching out my next NANCY THAYER novel from the one's I've already misse

There are few women with the insight to write such a profound book. We are a complex species and Ms. Thayer does a wonderful job of not only portraying our wide range of emotions but evoking them from ourselves. This is indeed a rare gift. I picked this book up as a light summer read not expecting to be inspired to do my own soul searching such that the main character Joanna does. Congratulations are in order for Ms. Thayer and for the women who read this book and discover the meaning with in it.

This is the second book of Ms. Thayer's I have read and I like both novels; enough to want to read her again. In this book, you have a woman who goes through many changes in her life (some quite unexpected) and how she evolves 180 degrees from where she started. By the end of the book she has melded the two wonderful lives she has created and in doing so, she has discovered what really matters in life.

I was looking for a good summer read when I was shopping Amazon... I found this book and decided to buy it. It looked interesting. I got it in the mail, opened it up, and I couldn't put it down. After I finished this book I was an instant Nancy Thayer fan. I ended up buying more of her books and they were just as wonderful... I am always looking for her next book to come out.

Since I've been on a rampage reviewing older Nancy Thayer books, I'll go onto this one. Belonging is a wonderful book and although it has some very sad parts, it ultimately shows a woman that starts one way and changes into something else. Joanna is a successful career woman - and although she loves another woman's husband, she finally realizes that "he's just not that into her" and changes. I won't say much more because it's something the reader should discover for herself (or himself I guess).

I wholeheartedly wish this book was available on Kindle. Alas it's not but I'm happy to see that it's available used so have a good read and get other older works by the author. A new novel that I just read and enjoyed - Heat Wave: a novel.

I love Nancy Thayer's books, some more than others, but this one, I really like.

Joanna Jones is a very successful NY network television personality in charge of her own show called "Joanna Jones' Fabulous Houses". Joanna interviews people from all over the United States about their homes. There is only one thing that is ironic about Joanna, she has never really had her own home. Even now in New York, she has an apartment but it is just a place for her to sleep in and it does not have much furniture. She spends all her time in the office working. Growing up Joanna was drug from pillar to post since her mother and father were divorced and neither parent had a home or offered her any type of stable or loving environment.

Joanna is in love with a married man and she sees him when time permits and when he is not with his wife and son. Soon circumstances lead Joanna to Nantucket where she comes upon a beautiful but vacant old estate on the island and she decides that the house is calling to her and she purchases the home.

The story that ensues is about what makes a house a home and who is really one's family. Joanna soon begins to create a home on Nantucket and finds out just who family really is.

A great read to curl up in bed with and just read!

The other reviews give you an outline of the story in this book so I will not recreate the wheel by doing it again, I will just make my comments on the book. I like it a lot but sometimes it does not add up too good. The strange connection to Doug Snow, the carpenter, and the unexplained sinister nature she paints him with don't seem to add up; for that matter neither does his son. Its like she is painting a picture of someone she actually knows and she knows him so well, she forgets to tell us some of the important parts which apparently are just obvious to her.
Also the love with Jake her boss is foreshadowed early in the book but never really developed. He is a high-powered network dude yet he acts like a real country bumpkin/father figure to our heroine and even though you know he is love with her its because you guess it, not because the author fleshes it out.
I love Madaket, she is real and a delicious character. Her relationship with studly Troy is never delineated very well though; and again, you can guess about her and Gardner but its not well pictured.
Joanna Jones is sort of the person we all wish we could be in her success and beauty and early good fortune. But her dark side is her relationship with the snooty and married Carter and then her weird way of dealing with the pregnancy. It seems somewhat preposterous.
And what about Torie? She is the conscience yet its almost like the author is saying, "she gets her come-uppance in the end," or "I told you so." She is the champion of marriage and family yet loses her husband and home to the wiles of a younger woman and is often depicted as bitter and crabby in her relationship with her "best friend" Joanna.
I liked this book and would read more Thayer. I would give it a B+.

I read. ALOT. But, I have not read any of Nancy Thayer's books. I did not care for the main character much, mainly because she seems to have a thing for married men, and not much of a conscience where that was concerned.

However, I will not give up on this author, but try another of her books.