Well, I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads, and I started reading it...and I really don't know where to go from there...
It ended up being a pretty good book, but it took me over a week to get through the first 60 pages, which is not a good sign when when the entire book is only 200 pages. It did pick up speed around page 100, but when a novel is that short, it needs to become interesting quicker. Most people I know would have given up on it.
Before I really got into the story, my main objection to the book was that I felt I was reading something written by one of the women from the "Real Housewives" television series. This woman appeared to do nothing all day, except yoga--she could not miss her yoga--and complain about life and how it wasn't fair, all the while making it obvious that she financially, she lived quite comfortably. What made me change my opinion was that the book finally picked and and started going somewhere. The protagonist finally started to tell some of her story and round herself out as a character.
Transitions within the story were rough and border-line jolting. A few times in the book, the point of view would shift from that of the protagonist to her mother, her husband, or her daughter, but there was little distinction between what the protagonist had just been thinking to what the new narrator was thinking. I can see some readers having problems with that. The story also does not always smoothly transition from the protagonists current life to her memories or to what she is writing. I suppose all of that is the point of the book; that it's supposed to be stream-of-consciousness, but I've never been a fan of that style.
I grew frustrated at the protagonists in her inability to see the parallels between her mother and herself. She hates her mother for never being around and for not loving her. She resents the way her mother kept her away from her grandmother. In the brief segment told from her mother's point of view, we see that the mother feels she gives her daughter everything she could ever want--freedom. She doesn't spend time around her because she doesn't want her daughter to feel smothered or to become like her. She realizes how smart her daughter is and hopes that she will go to college and get a job making good money, and that she will be able to release them from their current situation. The protagonist distances herself from her daughter, because she has been burned too many times by love and she is afraid of the love that she feels for her daughter. She gives her daughter absolutely everything (or so she feels) and grows angry at her daughter's ingratitude. And lastly, she keeps her daughter from knowing her grandmother. (This may be confusing, but it's not my fault--none of the characters have names.)
The end confused me...which version was really reality and which the dream?