Commonwealth and Did You Ever Have a Family

Did You Ever Have a Family                     Commonwealth

By Bill Clegg                                              by Ann Patchett

★★★★                                                       ★★★★

Sometimes you read similar books close together and can't help but compare them. It happened to me a couple years ago when I read TheLikeness and The Secret History. I enjoyed them both, but the plots were so similar. I couldn’t help but have a clear favorite.

That happened again last month when I read the novels Did You Ever Have a Family and Commonwealth back-to-back without realizing how similar they are. Both books revolve around a tragedy. In one book it happens in the present and in the other it happened in the past. Both books tell the story from the point of view of many different people who are connected to the story. Both deal with grief, loss, broken marriages, and children whose relationships with their parents are beyond complicated.

They were both excellent novels, but with different strengths. I read Did You Ever Have a Family first, so I think it had a clear advantage. I wasn’t comparing it to anything else while reading it. Once I started Commonwealth I kept thinking back to the plot of the first book. I think Commonwealth was the more beautifully written of the two. I love Patchett’s work. She creates such incredible characters with depth and complex feelings.

Clegg’s novel is centered on the events that happen the night before a wedding. The bride and groom and other family members are killed when a gas explosion destroys their house. The mother-of-the-bride is the only one to survive. We are narrowed in to see the repercussions of one event. We flash back to the past for some context, but the main focus is the ripple effect of the explosion.

In Commonwealth the tragedy isn't revealed until you’re immersed in the novel. It’s less about one big event and more about relationships. An affair kicks off the novel and the main focus is the interactions between two sets of siblings after their parents marry. We get to know the characters through decades of their lives, winding through marriages and deaths, cross-country moves and crappy jobs.  

Both are excellent character studies full of regret abandon dreams, sickness, guilt, and all the messiness of life. I love that two very different authors can craft completely unique books that feel similar because of the themes.

BOTTOM LINE: I really enjoyed both novels, but they are unintentionally tied together in my mind.

The Life We Bury

The Life We Bury

By Allen Eskens 
★★☆

Joey is a college student whose writing assignment leads him to the bedside of Carl, a dying convict. As he begins to unearth the murder mystery that put Carl behind bars, he gets more than he bargained for.

I like the mystery side of the novel, but so many of the characters were very two-dimensional to me. The Vietnam war vet, the jaded lawyer, the manic pixie girl who's too good for the boy who has a crush and is yearning for her, the alcoholic mother who is nothing but selfish and horrible, etc.

****SPOILER ALERT*********

I also had a few other major issues with the book. The one that bothered me the most is about Carl’s willingness to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit and spend 30 years in jail. I’m supposed to believe that, and I get it, Vietnam broke him and he was ready to die. That’s not where my issue is. We are supposed to believe he was willing to go to jail for the rape and murder charge, but at the same time we're supposed to believe that he's so passionate about protecting a young girl from being raped that he's willing to commit murder (in Vietnam). Yet he doesn't realize that taking the fall for a crime he didn't commit means a murderer and raper of young girls is still out there on the loose for 30 years. That does not add up to me. He knew that the investigation would end, which meant the real killer would be from to kill and rape again. And that’s exactly what he did!

I also had an issue with the relationship between Joe and his neighbor Lila. Lila makes it very clear that she does not want to relationship, she does not want to be pursued. Joey basically sees that as a challenge and in one line he even says something about how the wall she put up just makes him want her more. That sounds like a stalker. I get that it all worked out in the end, but the relentless way that he continues to bother her, when she very clearly states no thank you, really bothered me. It's like it was sending a message that if you just love the girl enough then you deserve her. What she wants does not matter or even play into the equation.

The final major issue that I had was Joe's trip to go see Doug. He knows he's going to go visit a murderer. His entire reason for going is to try to get the murderer to confess. But he doesn't tell a single soul where he's going and then once he gets there he tells said murder that at some point in the future he will tell the police about all this. So he makes it clear that he hasn't told the police anything yet. That makes zero sense and I hate it when authors have their characters make incredibly stupid choices that put them in dangerous situations. I feel like no one in their right mind would make that choice in the real world.

SPOILERS OVER 

BOTTOM LINE: I enjoyed the first half of the book. It went off the rails for me after that. I just felt like the characters kept doing things that contradicted their beliefs and so it took me completely out of the story.

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd
by Alan Bradley 
★★★★★

The one big problem I had with this novel is that I read it way too fast! I’ve grown to love Flavia de Luce and I look forward to reading each new release, but it goes way too quickly. It’s a good problem to have. This is one of the few series I’ve read where the books just keep getting better.

Flavia is back from Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada, but the halls of her beloved Buckshaw are quieter than normal. Her father is sick with pneumonia in the hospital. Bradley carries the reader effortlessly into Bishop’s Lacey in the 1950s. Once again, Flavia discovers a dead body and we’re off!

As is always true for me with these books, the murder mystery is secondary to the characters. Each new book adds layer upon layer to Flavia and her relationships with her family and friends. She is growing into a brilliantly astute woman, but she still has the self-involved innocence of a child in some areas of life. 

Dogger, Buckshaw’s caretaker, remains my favorite character. His steadfast devotion to Flavia’s father and his quiet guidance never disappoint. 

BOTTOM LINE: I love this series now so much more than when I read the first books. The deeper you get into Flavia’s world, the more attached you are to her and the people of Bishop’s Lacey.

“Growing up is like that, I suppose: the strings fall away and you’re left standing on your own. It was sad in a way that is hard to describe.”

“One can learn from a glance at a person’s library, not what they are, but what they wish to be.”

"I do not encourage early-morning chirpiness, even in those whom I know and love. It is generally a sign of sloppy mind and is not to be encouraged."