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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Secrets are good or bad, January 22, 2008
The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinksy is truthfully painful. A good novel but with so much guilt that you really start to feel like it's you in the story. It's a can't put down book til the end so that you can see if things come out for better or worse.
Deborah Monroe is mom, daughter, sister, ex-wife, and prominent town doctor to a quiet little town in New England. Highly respected and loved, independent, honest to a fault has her life upturned by one little incident. Oh, is it little or bigger than she thinks.
Grace Monroe is a loving, athletic, brilliant, devoted teen who knows right from wrong but the one little unfortunate incident throws her into such an emotional turmoil that you sit and wonder how your own child would react to the same thing happening to her. The entire town knows this teen as truthfully honest and reliable almost to perfection which sets Grace up for emotional pain that is unimaginable.
The story brings into question what lengths we would go to as a parent in order to protect our children. It also questions our ability to handle one crisis following another as an adult especially in a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. Can secrets truly be hidden in such a small community. Will one little deception tear a family apart not only from themselves but from all prying eyes. Can one selfish person willing cause so much emotional pain and break the trust that has been here for generations. So many questions with too few answers.
The author is brilliant with the actual storyline. With living in Massachusetts myself I can actually visualize all the areas that the author takes us to. Even though this is fiction it could also be someone's real life story. It's something we say can't possibly happen to us but in all reality, "It only takes one time", and it could very well come to pass.
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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Many lessons learned and much healing done, February 13, 2008
I'm a huge fan of Delinsky and buy her books without reading any reviews. This one didn't disappointment me---but I'm quite surprised by some of the other reviews. To me, this book had so much impact and depth. I loved it.
There are the issues of teens drinking and driving, the overwhelming issue of a parent trying to protect or perhaps over-protect her child, the trauma of divorce on the entire family, the guilt over your life's decisions, the keeping of secrets, the telling of lies that affect everyone you love,painful loss of a loved one, expectations that aren't fulfilled. The list goes on and on. There is so much in this story that it's at times painful to digest.
Deborah regrets her divorce and what it did to her family. But she lies by omission causing more pain and trauma to her children. There's also the piece that shows a softening of the relationship with everyone she loves--including the ex-husband. And then there's the promise of a new love in the future----perhaps she learned from her past mistakes.
How can you not love the story? Perhaps the writing isn't done in the depth of other writers but the story has a huge impact on life and all its issues of living. I couldn't put it down, lost some sleep and pushed work aside to finish this book. To me, that's the kind of book that gets a "5 star" rating.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing book, January 24, 2008
I also got an advance copy of this book through the BzzAgent program, but unlike the other reviewers who've posted here so far, I found the book to be incredibly poorly written and truly painful to read -- not because the story moved me, but because it was so derivative and ... terrible. I can't help but wonder whether those other reviewers read the same book as I did, or if they read this one at all. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy popular fiction and family dramas as well as romance fiction, so I've read other Barbara Delinsky books and thought they were okay (not great, but fine). This one, however, felt like she jotted it off in one afternoon, turned it in to her editor, and the thing got published without ever being looked at again.
If you want to read a GOOD novel about parents who try to protect a child who may (or may not) have done something deadly wrong, and that addresses big moral/ethical issues and family relationships in a meaningful way, AND IS WELL WRITTEN (!), then I strongly urge you to look elsewhere. Personally, I much preferred, and recommend, Rosellen Brown's "Before and After."
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