I tried hard to like this one, too, and failed. It moved quickly, and I liked the writing, but all the main characters annoyed me, especially Beth, for all the reasons others have mentioned. I think Gabriel and Frank were drawn to her because she was happy to mold herself to THEIR lives; first, Gabriel’s literary set and ambitions, and then Frank’s farm. And to Tessa’s manipulation: why did Beth take Tessa’s money without trying harder to contact Gabriel, knowing how much Tessa disliked her?
2. If you were Beth, would you have chosen Frank or Gabriel?
Neither. She could have saved everyone a lot of heartache if she’d kept her diaphragm in, gone off to Oxford, and then moved in with her sister for a few single years in London.
Frank seemed like a nice guy until he refused to see Beth and his child in prison. Ever. For YEARS. That would have been very traumatic for Grace. Why didn’t Beth just show up?
And Leo’s transformation into a happy American teenager after the trauma of the killing and Frank going to jail wasn’t believable at all.
I’ll take Frank over Gabriel any day, and I was okay with Frank not allowing Grace or Beth to visit him in prison. He doesn’t want Grace to have any memory of seeing him in that environment, and I understand that. If I were Beth, I would have visited him alone–and they do fight about that–but in the end, she respects his wishes.
Grace is young enough that I think not seeing her father during the early years won’t have an adverse effect on her. Sort of like a war baby. But when she grows up, she’s going to have LOTS of questions. And when she finds out the answers, she’ll probably fly to America and give Leo a piece of her mind. And then they’ll fall in love. Lol, I just wrote the sequel.
I really question Reese Witherspoon’s taste in books. I would definitely NOT have made a huge fuss over this book and may have quit reading it if not for this being the selection for this month.
To cheer up after reading this book, read “The Correspondent,” which I preferred and then “Chasing the Clouds Away,” which was happier though somewhat improbable.
Reese Witherspoon’s book choices are hit or miss – more miss than hit, although there are a few really good ones on the full list. I’m slightly more drawn to Jenna Bush Hager’s Book Club list.
This setup annoyed me from the get-go! It felt like a cheap trick. And so did the revelations at the end. We spent the entire book inside Beth’s head, and yet, these points didn’t come up in her thought process?
Because I was so annoyed by it, I did the mental experiment of imagining the book “told straight,” in chronological order, with the main points laid bare. It wasn’t terribly interesting, just melodramatic!
So, I told myself, take your choice, annoying or trite!
I did not guess that Bobby was Gabriel’s son, which was pretty dense of me. I think I trusted Beth too much as a narrator – probably exactly what the author intended, so she was successful on that front.
There’s a Reddit thread devoted to dating the Doormat Guy, and one person described it as “a misguided attempt to be the perfect boyfriend.” Or in Frank’s case, the perfect husband.
I think part of it is due to the guilt he feels over Bobby’s death, but I think it started before that – essentially, he will put up with anything to hang on to Beth.
I lean pretty neutral on this book as well. Although, I did cry when Grace met Frank after he got out of prison and I always appreciate an author who can bring out that kind of emotion in me through their words.
I think Frank lived with a lot of guilt about Bobby’s death and also guilt about not helping Jimmy enough with his anger/drinking issues. He wanted to save Leo since he wasn’t able to save Bobby or Jimmy. I mean, I still think it was a stretch, but I believe those were the reasons.
Same!
As far as Gabriel and Beth’s attraction to each other, I felt it was just a chemical/physical attraction and they never got past that infatuation stage that can come with early love. Their affair was a continuation of the early infatuation that they never moved past.
I’m in the minority here, read the book months ago, in couple days was quite the page turner for me. I understand with the many issues brought up, and like everyone found Beth a very unappealing character, and even spoke aloud when she and Gabriel had their affair…”no, no, .NO “ ……..
What I liked the most about the book is addressed in this question 4. Did you enjoy the way Clare Leslie Hall teased out the details of the murder trial? Who did you initially suspect was on trial? Did it play out the way you thought it would?
The story telling, jumping back and forth, and knowing there was a murder, and trial, but not 100% sure who was on trial, was very effective, and hooked me.
I did figure out Leo committed the murder.
I was surprised about Gabriel being the Bobby’s father .
This interview with the author explains, how she decided how the story would end, she didn’t know for quite some time.
And, @Caraid , she mentions in this, or another clip, that Frank did feel responsible for the boys death, and hence his imprisonment sort of personal redemption.
I, also, cried when Frank met Grace.
I didn’t love the book, but I guess I was okay with it. One of the problems was that I knew that there were going to be twists, so I expected them. I wasn’t surprised that Leo killed Jimmy. I wasn’t surprised that Frank took the fall.
The book was an easy, fast read. I don’t know if I would recommend it. I am glad that I read it.
I agree that it was a page turner; that is, I was always happy to pick up the book and see what the next development was going to be. And I don’t mind unlikeable or unreliable narrators; that can be part of the fun of reading a book. But I was bothered by the author’s manipulation of her characters – i.e., having them make choices that a sensible human would not make, in service to a somewhat convoluted plot.
I think this was my expression while reading the birthday party section:
Were we supposed to side with Beth on this? That it’s okay to have children firing air rifles at a birthday party because “it was written on the invitation”?
I couldn’t quite figure out the purpose (thematically speaking) of this passage and the harsh exchange with the boy William and his mother. At first, I thought it was intended to foreshadow Bobby’s death, but it turned out to be foreshadowing Jimmy’s death. David says to William:
“Your finger was on the trigger. You could have killed someone. There is nothing funny about murder.”
and then he tells the mother:
“I’d like to get across the severity of what just happened. Your son did something so unbelievably stupid and dangerous this afternoon he could have killed someone.”
I would argue that it was the adults who did something stupid and dangerous. David’s defense is that the children were “heavily supervised” and “we were rigorous in our safety instructions,” but obviously not or the incident wouldn’t have happened. Years later, access to a gun and a similar lack of supervision during a chaotic moment result in Leo’s killing of Jimmy.
Okay, I’m commenting on my own comment, which seems in bad taste. I’m back to say that the dinner party where Beth meets Gabriel’s mother (who makes Beth’s persona non grata status very clear) reminded me of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. But then – shout-out to Gilmore Girls fans! – I suddenly remembered: It was just like the dinner party where Rory meets Logan Huntzberger’s mother. Gabriel, with his good looks, easy charm, and desire to push back against his parents’ expectations, is cut from the same cloth as Logan. Sorry for the TV detour … I was exposed to far too many episodes of GG when my daughters were young.
The author wrote a book “Him,” released in UK and just reprinted & released as “Pictures of Him,” in US, UK and a few other places. In teaser, it talks about a woman who has a passionate ”love with a man” and then due to some terrible trauma cuts off contact, marries, has 2 kids and then reconnects with glamorous old flame. Sound familiar?
Clare has always loved The Go Between by LP Hartley and BROKEN COUNTRY has a nod to it, featuring a forbidden love affair with catastrophic repercussions.
Another nod to The Go Between: Leo is the name of the young protagonist in that book.
Joining this book club again after a rather long hiatus. This summer was busy with a lot of travel and other commitments.
This book was a mixed bag for me. It was an easy read, even somewhat of a page turner, but the main character, Beth, was annoying and unlikable. I found Frank to be way too saintly to be believable. And when Beth told him about her pregnancy while he was in prison, did he not for a moment question whether the child was his?
I don’t know about the ever-trusting Frank, but I definitely questioned whether the baby was his on his behalf.
If we are to believe our narrator, it is Frank’s baby. Grace was conceived shortly before the trial. Beth says, “I had ended things with Gabriel by then and Frank and I were trying to rebuild ourselves, piece by piece.”
I waited until the risks of early miscarriage had passed before I told Frank I was expecting his baby. I knew how much it would mean to him, another child, his own flesh and blood this time (p. 296).
It sure took her a long while to realize “how much it would mean to him” – since as @AnAsmom pointed out earlier, Beth declined to give this to him during the first decade of their marriage.
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