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A Scattered Life Paperback – August 10, 2010
Karen McQuestion (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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“McQuestion writes with a sharp eye and a sure voice, and as a reader, I was willing to go wherever she wanted to take me.” —Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs of Babel
Free spirit Skyla Plinka has found the love and stability she always wanted in her reliable husband, Thomas. Settling into her new family and roles as wife and mother, Skyla finds life in rural Wisconsin satisfying, but she can't seem to quell her growing sense of restlessness. Skyla's only reprieve is her growing friendship with neighbor Roxanne, who has five kids (and counting) and a life in constant disarray—but also a life filled with laughter and love.
Much to the dismay of her intrusive mother-in-law, Audrey, Skyla takes a part-time job at the local bookstore and slowly begins to rediscover her voice, independence, and confidence. Throughout one pivotal year in the life of Skyla, Audrey, and Roxanne, all three very different women will learn what it means to love unconditionally.
With the storytelling ingenuity of Anne Tyler, the writing talent of Jodi Picoult, and the subtlety of Alice Munro, McQuestion offers a satisfying debut that proves she is a gifted portraitist, a natural storyteller, and an author to watch.
- Print length255 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateAugust 10, 2010
- Dimensions5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-10193559706X
- ISBN-13978-1935597063
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Free-spirit Skyla Plinka has found the love and stability she always wanted in her reliable husband Thomas. Settling into her new family and roles as wife and mother, life in rural Wisconsin is satisfying, but can’t seem to quell Skyla’s growing sense of restlessness. Her only reprieve is her growing friendship with neighbor Roxanne, who has five kids (and counting) and a life in constant disarray – but also a life filled with laughter and love.
Much to the dismay of her intrusive mother-in-law, Audrey, Skyla takes a part-time job at the local bookstore and slowly begins to rediscover her voice, independence and confidence. Throughout one pivotal year in the life of Skyla, Audrey and Roxanne, all three very different women will learn what it means to love unconditionally. With the storytelling ingenuity of Anne Tyler, the writing talent of Jodi Picoult, and the subtlty of Alice Munro, McQuestion offers a satisfying debut that proves she is a gifted portraitist, a natural storyteller and an author to watch.
Amazon Exclusive: Carolyn Parkhurst Reviews A Scattered Life
Carolyn Parkhurst is the author of the bestselling novels The Dogs of Babel and Lost and Found, and recently published the acclaimed novel The Nobodies Album. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their two children. Read her exclusive guest review of Karen McQuestion's A Scattered Life:
A Scattered Life is the kind of novel you’ll want to recommend to a friend without quite knowing how: as soon as you begin to say what the book is "about," all of the possible descriptions seem either too small or too big for the story contained in those pages.
You might say, "It’s about friendship and family dynamics and the unexpected ways our actions influence the trajectories of other people’s lives." Or "It’s about a woman who’s doing her best to make the life she has into the life she wants to live." And it’s your 7th grade book report on The Red Pony all over again: your description isn’t inaccurate, but it doesn’t come close to conveying the book’s gravity and substance, the particular pleasure you get from immersing yourself in this novel, as opposed to any other.
So you might try getting more specific: "Okay, the main character is a woman named Skyla Plinka. She’s married and lives in the suburbs and has a little girl, and her life is all very ordered and predictable, which she likes, because her childhood was tough and she’s always craved stability. She clashes a little bit with her mother-in-law, Audrey, who has different ideas about how a wife and mother should run her home and who would like to be more involved in her life than Skyla is comfortable with. But then a new family moves in next door, and Skyla strikes up a friendship with her new neighbor Roxanne, who’s brash and charismatic and has five kids and just loves living in the kind of messy chaos that they create..." And you realize you’ve gone too far in the other direction, zooming in on the details of an individual tree, while ignoring the vastness and beauty of the forest.
So here’s how I’m going to recommend A Scattered Life: From the very first sentence--"Skyla’s earliest memory of Thomas was linked with the smell of beer and the taste of blood"--Karen McQuestion had me right where she wanted me. Right away, I was there with Skyla, curious about who she was and what choices she’d made, and ready to live her life for a while, instead of my own.
McQuestion has a talent for creating characters who are layered and subtle, flawed and ordinary and exceptional, in the way we all are. The book alternates between the viewpoints of the three women--Skyla, Roxanne and Audrey--and their incomplete and refracted perspectives come together to form a narrative that’s fuller and more complex than the story any one of them might tell on her own.
McQuestion writes with a sharp eye and a sure voice, and as a reader, I was willing to go wherever she wanted to take me. After I finished the book, I thought about how I might describe it to a friend, and I settled on a phrase that says a lot without saying very much at all. It’s the way these conversations usually end: "You should read this. It’s good." --Carolyn Parkhurst
From Booklist
Review
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : AmazonEncore (August 10, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 255 pages
- ISBN-10 : 193559706X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1935597063
- Item Weight : 11.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #197,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,976 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #6,144 in Humor & Satire Fiction (Books)
- #6,214 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Click on the Follow link to be notified of Karen's new releases!
Karen McQuestion is an Amazon Charts bestselling author who's written more than twenty novels and has sold over two million books worldwide. She's also the co-host, (along with USA Today bestselling author Tess Thompson), of the popular podcast, BEHIND THE BOOK.
Her publishing story has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR and she has appeared on ABC's World News Now and America This Morning. McQuestion’s books share common themes of connection and kindness. She lives in Hartland, Wisconsin.
From Karen: To be notified of giveaways and book news, please sign up for my email newsletter at www.karenmcquestion.com
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
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What makes writing this review challenging is that I don't want to to ruin the story by telling you about. It is a novel to experience without expectations. Karen McQuestion has done a wonderful job; wow!
A very good book! Jump in!
I am so glad I read this book. The first thing I thought of when I finished it was that I wanted to call my best friend from high school. The lives of these three very different but lovable characters makes you stop and take a look at your own life. I love the message left for Skyla by Roxanne. How perfect. I have to warn you, I cried like a baby. My husband kept asking what was wrong with me. I was shocked by how emotionally invested in the story that I became. The things I guess that as a mother of four I can relate to so many things in this book.
I can not wait to read another book by Karen McQuestion. If this book was an indicator. I will love every one of them.
I've read several e-books lately with tons of errors, and pleasantly surprised to not see this problem in this book. If there were errors, I didn't catch them. Nothing was done in this book for nothing; everything served a purpose. I'll definitely read more books from this author!!
Top reviews from other countries

A scattered life tells the story of Skyla who having spent her life growing up with barely any family and on the move most of the time has found a settled domestic life in Wisconsin with sensible husband Thomas and daughter Nora. When Skyla takes a job at a local book shop she begins to find her independence and remember he old passions for life and begins to question her life and look for more from it.
I have to say that on the whole I was pretty disapointed by this book, it was a nice enough story and I felt like it had the potential to be something special but it just never got there. The story was well observed and well structured but on the whole I was bored by the characters, there wasnt really any insight into their emotions as the story progressed so you didnt really feel like you were sharing a journey or experience with them.
I think I felt like I was getting to know the characters and waiting for the moment when we would get more involved with them but it just never happened.
If you are looking for a nice enough story to entertain you then this book is good enough but its not a story that stayed with me long after I finished the last page.
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