It took me a little while to really get into this but once I did it had me gripped. I kept waiting for the shit to hit the fan but once it got to a point where it felt like it might happen I realised that I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to happen once it did. 

Tayari Jones does such a great job of making all the choices the characters make understandable, even if they're bad or harmful choices, so, for me anyway, it wasn't ever a case of taking sides, or rooting for one family over the other. Even with James, who was the least likable, I could see how he ended up in the situation.

I was also happy to see the women were the central focus of this story. Yes James is the one who made it all happen, but aside from a little bit of backstory to explain how they all got to this point, it's all about the girls/women. And this really came into play towards the end when I expected

the reveal to come at the gas station, and for James and Raleigh to be in the middle of it, but instead it played out later, between the mothers and daughters, and James and Raleigh mostly disappeared after that. And again, some characters made some choices after the reveal that I didn't necessarily like, but I could see why they made them. 

I know practically every book ever written is being made into a film, or adapted for TV these days, but this is one I would dearly love to see get a mini series. There were several scenes I could see vividly in my head as I was reading them.