Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book revolves around the four adult children in the Hawkes family, who are reunited when their father falls ill. They have struggled as a family since their mother's death five years prior to the start of the story, and the book follows the various ways they have coped with losing a parent. For example, the protagonist, Grace, has isolated herself from her family completely since their mother's death. When faced with the prospect of losing their father, they are forced to either unite or divide.

I really, really enjoyed Liza Palmer's portrayal of this family. The characters, their feelings, their interactions, and their conversations all rang true to me. Of course, the makeup of my family is almost identical to that of the Hawkes', down to the ages, so I may have related more than the average reader. Even if that were the case, I feel that Ms. Palmer is extraordinarily gifted at illustrating even the most mundane ways that siblings interact with one another, and how each tends to have their `role' assigned in childhood and can never quite shed it after that.

The book really explores some of the issues related to losing a parent (which can happen in many ways), and how we struggle to adulthood carrying our scars with us. The writing is fresh, crisp, and in many cases, very funny. The only thing keeping me from giving it five stars is that the writing was uneven in some places. But it was a very nice read that made me look forward to more of Ms. Palmer's books.

Or even her second best. It was just OK, some good writing but all in all the characters were so thinly drawn it was hard to feel like you got to know them much. Read "Seeing Me Naked" or "Conversations with the Fat Girl" instead.

I just finished this book and had to come write a positive review. This novel is an engrossing and engaging blend of family drama and romance with a bit of a mystery/legal plot thrown in to round things out. It's smoothly written with a lot of humor and emotion that never feels cliched, even if you feel you've read this plot before.

Grace, the main character, has been living in a detached fog since her mother's death five years before. She doesn't speak to any of her siblings or her former boyfriend. Instead, she's floating through life without feeling anything. When her father--who left the family when Grace was a teenager--has a stroke, Grace is forced to confront the pain that she's kept buried.

I loved all the relationships in this book. John, Grace's former boyfriend, is what you want in a hero--smart, kind, but with an edge. It is perhaps somewhat unrealistic that he'd be available to Grace after five years (throughout, I kept thinking that two to three years would have made more sense), but there's good tension between them and I was invested in their outcome.

I also loved Huston, Abigail, and Leo--is it too much to hope that they all get their own books in the future?

Pick this up when you want a feel-good read that isn't dumbed down.

Grade: A-

I decided to write a review for this book after reading the other reviews on Amazon. The story line has been recapped enough, so I won't go into that. I didn't find the book particularly sweet or light, as others have described it. I didn't wonder why Grace's siblings would welcome her back into the fold so readily, or why her ex-boyfriend was still available, as other reviewer's have. I was just really sucked in by the emotions of the four main characters as they dealt with all the confusion and problems their father's stroke revealed. They were all damaged by their father's desertion early in their lives, and they now have to figure out why he chose THEM to, essentially, take care of him and his estate at the end of his life. Perhaps because I've lived through parts of this story already, and am facing it again with my own father, it all just seems very believable and true to me. Parts of it did not make me feel good, but even though these aren't real people, at least you can see that one CAN come out on the other side. It did seem unrealistic that the four siblings are all successful in their careers, have beautiful homes, are very secure financially, and are "beautiful"...not to mention that their father turns out to be incredibly wealthy. And the fact that two of the characters are very successful attorneys certainly made it a lot easier to fight off the wicked "stepmother" in court. I haven't read Liza Palmer's earlier novels, and it was after reading the reviews on Amazon of 'Conversations with the Fat Girl' and 'Seeing Me Naked' that I came to the conclusion that Ms.Palmer's latest novel might be dealing with more serious life issues than her earlier novels. I'm not sure those novels appeal to me, so I can see why readers who loved them might not like 'A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents' as much. I think it is a good read, but I don't think it is light-hearted and sunny...even though it does have a lot of humor in it.

This book was.. ok. It wasn't that great as everyone seems to say it is. The beginning of the book wasn't as sympathetic as it should be. The feeling I got was "who cares, it happens everyday" but the more I read the book, the more I connected with the characters which is why I give this book a 3 out of 5. Plus the ending turned out beautifully written. The book I read before this was very powerful and very sad and then I read this book and it disappointed me.

Reading this book was very easy, which was easy for me to go through the entire book in one day. I would recommend this book to people that are very close with their families. other than that, I wouldn't recommend it.

I am one of 5 "surviving" children and my mother just had a stroke in November. The hospital dramas (nasty nurses, crowded rooms), family meetings and paperwork zoos were all too familiar but the plot is what really gripped me. My mind raced with all of the possible turns the story might take. I could not stand to be apart from these characters. I'll be grabbing another Liza Palmer novel today.

I love Liza Palmer- she writes with charm, wit, and real emotion about the lives of families and the difficulties of finally becoming a grown up. She writes with a frankness that you don't often find in women's fiction but it's never bitter. i think that makes her characters very relatable and this is her best book yet... highly recomend for anyone who loves jennifer weiner, jodi piccoult, or laura zigman.

This book hit close to home with me on so many levels--absent father, evil stepmother, strong single mother. I loved it. I thought Palmer did a great job telling this story, and I really enjoyed the characters and the way the plot developed.

Liza Palmer's book, a field guide to burying your parents, is one of the best books I've read in the last few years. Her four main characters, Huston, Abigail, Leo and Grace Hawkes, come together after five years of not being a family. The reason they have been apart was that their beloved mother had died, (their father had packed up and left the family years earlier), and the 'kids' couldn't deal with the situation. Fast forward the five years, and their dad is dying. It is time to become a family again, but is that even possible anymore? This book was wonderfully written, and I really felt I was there in the hospital with the family. I guess I was the fifth child??? This book would be perfect for a book club group, and I plan to offer it up as my selection for my group!

This novel begins with the protangist, Grace Hawkes, ducking the calls from her family, something we all do from time to time. However as the chapter proceeds, you begin to realize Grace does this on a full time basis, something she learned from her father and continues with her siblings.

Only as she learns from her more responsible brother that her biological father is dying and wants to reconcile does she start to break the habits formed from her teenage years. She finally turns up at the hospital to confront her sister and brothers and her exboyfriend (who she also ran away from)and begins to develop from an independent though somewhat self centered character to someone with a more mature outlook on life. There is much gnashing of teeth when her father has a stroke which prevents Grace from verbal reconciling with him that I found off putting. "Fair" is something you expect from a teenager, not a late 20 something adult or character.

But the author interjects some bittersweet humor into the storyline with highjinks with her sister Abigail to retrieve her dad's effects from her father's second wife. A somewhat unbalanced but sweet story to deal with the reconciling to family, dealing with death and growing up.

If you enjoy this, I would strongly recommend Todd Johnson's The Sweet By and By.