Quarterly Postal Markup Book Exchange discussion

Use this thread to discuss this novel. Feel free to create a schedule, agreed upon posting expectations, questions, etc.

Make sure this is the correct author. There are three books with very similar authors. Mindi, let me know if this is not the one you picked.

I’m just over 1/4 of the way through. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book so far. It is intriguing, yet annoying at the same time.

Mindi wrote: "I’m just over 1/4 of the way through. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book so far. It is intriguing, yet annoying at the same time."

I feel much the same about my own, Mindi. I look forward to starting this one, though.

Mindi wrote: "I’m just over 1/4 of the way through. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this book so far. It is intriguing, yet annoying at the same time."

Is it literary style annoying or the characters that are annoying?

I made it to chapter 22, but my hold on the book expired in the meantime, so I'll be continuing with the audiobook. I've read good things about the narrator; I'm looking forward to it. How's your reading coming along?

I’m not in this group but HAD to chime in! I couldn’t put it down and yet I still had this love-hate thing with that book. Lol.

I'm behind on my notes. Sorry.

I don’t know that I would have picked up this book on my own, so I’m glad I got to read it in this group. I did enjoy the book. The author does a good job of making you identify & connect with the characters, so you can feel sad with them or angry at them. I was angry with Laurel for a while, and then I realized that’s life. Some parents have favorites, mine does.

It was hard accepting one woman held the cards to an entire family falling apart. Laurel’s refusal to let go, pushed everyone else in her family to the fringes of her life. This line is what angered me at Laurel the most, “Because I didn’t think he was hurting enough. Because he tried to make me believe that things would be OK, and I didn’t want things to be OK.”. She wasn’t concerned about anyone else.

I truly wanted to reach out & slap her a few times! She demonized Hanna & I wanted to thrash her about. Here when she is being super selfish, “But she could not face his gaze, could not give him any part of herself.” & definitely when she describes Hanna, “Hanna has completely transmogrified in her mind from an ice princess destined never to thaw to a scarlet woman throwing herself at other people’s boyfriends with no thought for anyone but herself. Laurel no longer knows what to think about her daughter.”

This visualization from Ellie, made it hard for me to accept her not coming back. “Ellie could feel it all calling to her from the other side of the dark tunnel of exams; she could feel the warm nights and the long days, the lightness of having nothing to do and nowhere to be. She thought of all the things she could do once she’d finished this chapter of her life, all the books she could read and the picnics she could eat and the funfairs and shopping trips and holidays and parties. For a moment she felt breathless with it all; it overwhelmed her and made her stomach roll over and her heart dance.” I wanted her to get to finish enjoying being a kid. When Ellie is hurting to go home, I was screaming for her to fight.

I loved the parallel look at how much as a whole, we use superficial appearances to judge people’s happiness, intelligence & often worth. A simple question from 8 year old Poppy, “”He looks nice,” she says. “Is he nice?””

How we forget that in our quest to be “normal”, we deny that everyone else has problems, insecurities & struggles. “You know, Laurel, all my life all I ever wanted was to feel like everyone else.”

I hope more people reach the point where they just let go of the desire to feel “normal” & definitely not late in life, “”You know, how you get to forty and you suddenly stop giving a shit about all the stupid things you worried about your whole life.””

By the end I didn’t detest Laurel as much, but when this line comes across! I did say well it’s all Laurel’s fault! “But what about us, Laurel wants to ask, when will this stop being our life? When will there be time for us to be a family again? When will any of us ever truly laugh or truly smile without feeling guilty?”