Customer Reviews

Other People's Children

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Josie has just married Mathew, whose 3 teenage children live with their mother Nadine. Josie's son Rufus will live with Josie and Mathew but secretly Rufus prefers his father Tom's house, especially since Tom met Elizabeth......what will happen when Nadine relinquishes the 3 teenagers to Josie and Mathew>? Will Elizabeth be able to give up Rufus even if she cannot see a future with his father? This is a sentimental but highly readable book on the effects faced by adults and children, when family dynamics change. Trollope has a gift for succint and emotive language whereby the reader as onlooker can be totally absorbedinto the minutae of family life, and ordinary domestic events are invested with a poignancy that lingers as surely as similar real life scenarios . Th story takes us through the adjustments needed by two divorces and a remarriage, the consequences managing to rebound on every adult and child involved. The traumas of key figures such as Josie the new stepmother, fighting the negative stereotypes , despite Nadine's irrational and abusive behaviour toward her children, are compulsive, as are Elizabeth's struggles with the destructive pattern of possessiveness set by Tom's adult children. The reader is made increasingly aware that no clear cut answers are in view, but the unexpected joys of people overcoming emotional baggage, make for a positive and generous novel on the extended family model.

Josie has just married Mathew , whose 3 teenage children currently live with their mother, Nadine. Josie's son, Rufus will live with Josie and Mathew but he secretly prefers his father Tom's house, especially since Tom met Elizabeth.....what happens when Nadine relinquishes the children to Mathew and Josie? And when Elizabeth wants to mother Rufus but cannot see a future with his father? This is a story about circumstances that many families, both adults and children, will face at every level of society. Trollope has a great gift for succint and emotive language that turns so called ordinary events into meaningful and poignant moments and where the reader as onlooker, is totally absorbed into the minutae of family interaction. Without choosing sides or casting blame , Trollope takes us through the changes and adjustments that two divorces and a remarriage make for all involved. For eg Josie as stepmother must defy the stereotype of the "other woman" made harder by natural mother Nadine's destructive and irrational behaviour, pushing the loyalties of her children constantly to the test. Elizabeth comes up against the extreme reactions of Toms' adult children who will not allow Tom a second chance. Triumphs and tragedies are experienced by each participant as they pick up the pieces of a new family structure, and the reader is left with a strong awareness that there are no clear cut answers . Only that the immense efforts made by step- families can result in unexpected successes. Sentimental it may be, but this novel is a positive and generous slant on the extended step family.

Sometimes it's hard to review Joanna Trollope's books for fear of putting off a potential reader. Such is the case with "Other People's Children," which is a brilliant look at what step- families are really like. I know that I, reading the above sentence, would think, "Oh, not again, it's been done to death, yuck." And then I would have missed one of Trollope's best works, one that is not boring in the least, and that has such insight, such truth, that it can enrich any reader.

So. That having been said, please bear with me as I try to explain this book, which is slight on plot and heavy on insight. It involves a number of very nice people of all ages, from young Rufus, just 7 when the book begins, to a 20-something engaged couple, to a 30-something newly married pair who are blending their respective families, to a May-September relationship between a single woman in her early 40s, Elizabeth, and a twice-married architect with two adult children from his first marriage, and Rufus from his second. This man's name is Tom. It is his adult son, Lucas, who is engaged (to Amy), and his second wife, Josie, mother of Rufus, whose recent remarriage has blended two families. Her husband, Matthew, has his hands full with his teenaged girl and boy, and a younger girl as well, all of them products of a highly dysfunctional mother whose sick dependence on them makes it nearly impossible for Matthew and Josie to have a normal life, especially with Lucas added to the mix.

It is Tom's adult daughter Dale, however, who causes the most destruction in this story, once again illustrating Trollope's favorite "no man is an island" theme. Having lost her mother at the tender age of 4, Dale, now a successful businesswoman in her 30s, cannot let go of her clinging (and cloying) attachment to her father Tom or her brother Lucas. She retains a key to her childhood home and barges in whenever she feels like it, despite the fact that Elizabeth, Tom's fiancée, now lives there, and that Dale's young step-brother Lucas spends some weekends there as well.

Dale is the catalyst for the eventual destruction of some relationships, and the triumph of others. The rippling effect of her neurotic behavior is catastrophic, even though she consciously means no harm. Does love conquer all? Not in this book--and not in real life, either. Kudos to Trollope for pointing this out, and for having the courage to resist a pat ending.

It can be amazing, the effects of one decision. Josie, amarried woman with a child, falls in love with Matthew, a married manwith 3 children... and the snowball begins the avalanche. This is a wonderful book, this look at the balancing around stepchildren (not for them, but not ignoring them either.) There is a lot of love, a lot of pain, oh sure, but more intriguingly, there is a lot of truth in this examination of the lives of people so caught in the juggernaut of modern life.

This book really presented an accurate view of what it's like to be in a stepfamily today. I think this should be required reading for anyone considering a marriage with someone who has children from a former relationship!

This is the story of a group of people who are connected by way of multiple marriages and children by different parents. Matthew, who was previously married to mentally precarious Nadine, and who had three children with her, has just married Josie who was previously married to Tom and had a son by him. It's a convoluted story with many characters, but is so well written that it's no problem to keep the strands separate, as each family and inter connected family sorts through their new situations and makes sometimes painful adjustments to make their lives more livable. At times it's a bit wrenching to see how some natural parents poison their children's minds against the new step parent, demanding unquestioning loyalty from them where it isn't deserved. This book doesn't have a completely fairytale ending with some parents and adult children unable to shake off the ties of childhood, to the huge detriment of everybody.

Josie Carver marries Matthew Mitchell. However, his three children (fifteen-year old Becky, twelve-year old Rory, and ten-year old Clare) from a former marriage and his mentally imbalanced ex-wife cause problems for their relationship. In contrast, Matthew gets on well with her child (eight-year old Rufus) from her former marriage. Can this couple survive the storms of an extended family?

Josie's ex-husband architect Tom Carver becomes engaged to client Elizabeth Brown. His oldest son Lucas (from his first marriage to the deceased Pauline) hopes his dad finds happiness. His other adult child from Tom's marriage to Pauline, Dale, causes major friction between them. Can this couple survive the storm of one individual?

Renowned for her novels set in England, Joanna Trollope writes an excellent and timely contemporary drama on the impact of various related step-families. The story is extremely complex, enjoyable, and poignant. The motivations of the numerous characters are comprehensible and allow readers to deeply look into the varying dilemmas confronting adults and children with the modern ultra-extended family. OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN demonstrates that Ms. Trollope knows how to dig into the psychological heart of the modern world.

<P<Harriet Klausner

This story brought tears to my eyes. It explores the lives of 3 women(Nadine,Josie,and Elizabeth)and how they are affected by divorce, being separated from their children and gaining stepchildren as well. Reading this story while going thru a divorce myself with a child made me nervous about what's in store for me. I think that Rory ,Becky, and Dale were extremely troubled almost to the point of being unrealistic. I loved the book though and had a hard time putting it down.

Any new book by Joanna Trollope is welcome, and like her others, "Other People's Children" goes by far too fast. Here, however, she spreads herself very thin, tackling roughly 15 characters from several generations, and thereby loses the intensity and focus of "A Spanish Lover," for example, which is surely one of her best works. If we ask ourselves at the end of the book whether we will miss the characters whose lives we are now leaving, there might be a few whose loss we feel: Elizabeth, certainly, and perhaps Rufus. But that's a small percentage of those we have been asked to care about. Still, Trollope creates some nicely complicated characters, particularly in Tom and Nadine, who present themselves so very differently from how (and who) they turn out to be. This novel is definitely worth a read and disappoints only in comparison with even better works by the same author.

Each one of Trollope's novels gets stronger. A great story teller, her characters are completely fleshed out and you find yourself anxiously waiting to see what will happen next. Let's hope she keeps crankin' 'em out at her current rate. A great, satisfying read to make the end of the winter fly by!