Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsDisappointing
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021
I am amazed at the praise heaped on this book, and the only reason I can come up with is Novak's previous books have all been consistently good. Perhaps that is one of the reasons this book was even more disappointing. Novak appears to be striving to branch out into the women's fiction genre more capably handled by authors such as Kristen Hannah. Unfortunately she also decided to combine three books in one and didn't really do justice to any of them. Each of the three subplots dealt with multiple histrionic life events for the main character, her mother and teenaged daughter. This was one of those books that you just wanted to come to an end. Obviously Novak felt the same way because she just stopped writing it. I sat in disbelief that there was no resolution to anybody's story. To say the least I felt cheated. I found out yesterday that anyone who participated in Novak's online chat scheduled for 4/13/21 would receive a 12 page "epilogue" which, I suppose, tied up the storylines. I guess she found it after she turned in the original manuscript and it was to late to include it. All I can say is I feel doubly cheated now. No doubt the epilogue will be included when the book is republished in a year or so with a new cover and retitled.
