Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Pretending to Dance

When I saw that Diane Chamberlain had a new book out, I was so excited. Her book, The Secret Life of CeCe Wilks was the book that introduced me to her and had me at my library reading every one of her books!

Summary from Goodreads.com:

Molly Arnette is very good at keeping secrets. She lives in San Diego with a husband she adores, and they are trying to adopt a baby because they can't have a child on their own. But the process of adoption brings to light many questions about Molly's past and her family—the family she left behind in North Carolina twenty years before. The mother she says is dead but who is very much alive. The father she adored and whose death sent her running from the small community of Morrison's Ridge. Her own birth mother whose mysterious presence in her family raised so many issues that came to a head. The summer of twenty years ago changed everything for Molly and as the past weaves together with the present story, Molly discovers that she learned to lie in the very family that taught her about pretending. If she learns the truth about her beloved father's death, can she find peace in the present to claim the life she really wants?

My thoughts: (and they contain a lot of spoilers)

I teeter on 3.5-4 stars with this one. The summary made this book sound like a murder mystery. It sounded so dark and suspenseful. It wasn't. It was a story of a teenage girl and her father. Her father has a debilitating disease and is wheelchair bound. The oddity to her situation is that both her biological and adoptive mother live in the same family community. Her dad was in a relationship with her mother, and the mother took off when she found out she was pregnant. Her did didn't know of her existence until she was little. By then, he was married to the woman who would come to adopt Molly.


That was the real twist of the story. As far as her mother murdering her father, it was really her mother acting out her father's wishes. Nothing more than that. Unfortunately for Molly, she cut everyone of importance out of her life and by the time she was ready to face reality, some of the people were no longer living.

She also kept her childhood a big secret from her husband. When she starts to tell him, his reaction was basically like, that's it? I felt exactly the same way. 


The story, however, was very well written. In true Diane fashion, you are sucked right into the pages and can experience the heart ache and sorrow that Molly felt as a confused teenager. 

I really do love Diane's books, and I hope that the next one holds up to my expectations a little bit more.



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