16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The perils of modern family life..., May 10, 2010
This review is from: The Other Family: A Novel (Paperback)
Trollope's forte is what I think of as domestic dramas: in her dozen or more novels, her characters (usually women of a certain age, from their 30s to the 50s or 60s) confront some kind of crisis in their lives that forces them to re-examine all they had taken for granted. Her focus is the family, in all its myriad permutations. She has a keen eye for both the poignant and the absurd, yet never allows her narrative to topple over into sentimentality or banality. These are stories of messy lives and human frailties -- not literature a la Jane Austen, certainly, and at the same time, these are the same kind of people and the same kind of outwardly-seeming banal domestic situations that Austen tackled in her time. Trollope, when she's in top form, has a keen eye for character that propels her novels from 'chick lit' territory into something better.
Happily, in this novel, she seems to back in form after several disappointing (to me, at least) novels. (I never managed to finish her last, Friday Nights.) The focus of the story is Chrissie, who lives in London with her long-time partner, Richie Rossiter, an older man and an aging pop star that women of a certain age still swoon over, and their three daughters. She wears a wedding ring -- one that she bought for herself, since Richie doesn't want to divorce his first wife, Margaret. (Although he was happy to leave her behind in Newcastle when he headed south with Cassie in search of new horizons and new audiences, decades earlier.) Left behind also was Richie's son, Scott, who becomes the focus of Margaret's life. Margaret also wears a wedding ring -- a real one -- but has no husband to go with it. And then Richie dies suddenly of a heart attack (this is where the book begins), leaving two unanticipated bequests to his old family and a large hole in the center of his new family.
In Trollopian tradition, Richie's will ends up forcing the two families together in a way that both resist and resent, and requires all of them to find a new way to exist. Without realizing it, all five have slipped into ruts of various kinds, and in an effortless way, Trollope points this out while allowing each to make the first tentative discoveries and take the first steps toward change.
It's a predictable kind of novel if you've read her books before, but still satisfying and an enjoyable weekend read. It's a solid 4-star book, extremely well-written. Nothing revolutionary, but recommended to anyone who has enjoyed some of Trollope's better novels (mostly her earlier books; my favorite remains
A Spanish Lover: A Novel)
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not best book she ever wrote..., April 12, 2011
I am about halfway through this book and I'm not planning to finish it. I have read almost every prior book Joanna Trollope wrote and have liked them a lot...but not this one. I don't find the characters engaging--they're too one-dimensional, too undeveloped, too flat. I just don't care enough about any of them to bother to finish the book.
The story has the potential to make a good novel, but it misses the mark. The intertwining of the two families and how they all reacted to Richie's death could have been an engrossing tale, but it just doesn't get off the ground. There needs to be a little more introspection and a little less whining and self-pity.
But I'll probably read her next book. She's capable of brilliant writing. Nobody writes a masterpiece every time.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
GAH!, September 20, 2011
I couldn't even make it through three chapters and was bored. After the first chapter of boredom I told myself to stick it out and it would get better, but I just couldn't get myself to read this book when I have a list of other books I want to read!
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