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A review by obsidian_blue
Two Fridays in April by Roisin Meaney
3.0
Updated: June 25, 2024. Re-read wasn't that great. I actually put this down and didn't finish the full re-read. Not a great book to revisit.
I was surprised to find this book just okay. It's not bad or anything, I just didn't find it very gripping considering the subject matter. I think Meaney has done a better job of showcasing the same characters over a period of days/week before (see "Last Week of May"). I think the main issue is that we shuffle between four characters, then we get the stories broken into duos, and then we revisit the same characters more than a year later and though one character goes through something life changing, it feels a bit samey which is weird.
"Two Fridays in April" has the Darling family dealing with recovering from the one year anniversary of the death of Finn Darling. The book shows the POV of Daphne Darling (Finn's widow), Mo Darling (Finn's mother), Isobel Franklin (Daphne's mother) and Una Darling (Finn's stepdaughter).
Daphne still feels adrift after losing her husband and doesn't know what to do with regards to her stepdaughter Una. Daphne's mother in law Mo isn't much help. Daphne's mother Isobel is nearby, but the two of them rarely talk about "real things." I was interested in Isobel more than the other characters though she felt like a secondary character to me even though we get her POV. Daphne I thought was a bit much though at times. She's still harboring resentment towards her mother for abandoning her for a few months when she was 6. You find out later that her mother came back after her affair exploded in her face. But from then on she saw her on scheduled visits. So I guess I just don't get why they had not talked about it before now and or why she would be holding it against her? It just felt odd.
Mo is dealing with not only losing her husband, but coming to grips that her husband she loved is dealing with the affects of Alzheimer's disease. Mo is pretty bitter about the fact that Daphne and Finn didn't have children since she doesn't feel as close to Una since she's not Finn's "real daughter." Such a mess. I was not a fan of Mo by the way at all while reading her sections. She tries to bully Daphne into quitting her job to reopen Finn's shop with her and doesn't care that Daphne doesn't want to. Whether she has a bustling career or not, it's still her life.
Isobel's POV felt like it could be her own book. She has a lot of regrets that she is dealing with now that she is almost 60. One of them is leaving her first husband for another man due to how that affected her relationship with her daughter Daphne. Isobel realizes too late how foolish it was to run from her first marriage to a man who ended up dumping her soon after to return to his own family. She is now married to 10 years to a man she realizes that she doesn't love and who doesn't love her. Isobel is determined though to get a bit of passion in her life and you get to read about her trying her best to meet men (yep still married) on a dating site.
Una feels more lost. Finn is her father (not her real father) her birth mother died when she was small and now she is left with her father's widow who she feels really doesn't want her around. Una goes around making a ton of mistakes throughout the book, but her story-line felt very real to me. I wish that it had been the second POV in the book or maybe the book should have really focused on just her and Daphne's POV. I would not have missed Mo's POV at all and as I already said, Isobel's read as weird to include here.
The writing was okay. I think the main issue was the flow was not that great. We go from the different POVs and then we are also jumping around in timelines. So if you start reading about Una, we have her going into what she has been up to almost for a year and going up to the present day in her POV chapter. It made things a bit confusing to read I found. The latter section (Friday, 29, April (A Year and a Bit Later) wraps things up nicely though (a bit too nicely). Meaney tries for a twist with a character and I thought that something else happened, but we get a surprise with her.
I was surprised to find this book just okay. It's not bad or anything, I just didn't find it very gripping considering the subject matter. I think Meaney has done a better job of showcasing the same characters over a period of days/week before (see "Last Week of May"). I think the main issue is that we shuffle between four characters, then we get the stories broken into duos, and then we revisit the same characters more than a year later and though one character goes through something life changing, it feels a bit samey which is weird.
"Two Fridays in April" has the Darling family dealing with recovering from the one year anniversary of the death of Finn Darling. The book shows the POV of Daphne Darling (Finn's widow), Mo Darling (Finn's mother), Isobel Franklin (Daphne's mother) and Una Darling (Finn's stepdaughter).
Daphne still feels adrift after losing her husband and doesn't know what to do with regards to her stepdaughter Una. Daphne's mother in law Mo isn't much help. Daphne's mother Isobel is nearby, but the two of them rarely talk about "real things." I was interested in Isobel more than the other characters though she felt like a secondary character to me even though we get her POV. Daphne I thought was a bit much though at times. She's still harboring resentment towards her mother for abandoning her for a few months when she was 6. You find out later that her mother came back after her affair exploded in her face. But from then on she saw her on scheduled visits. So I guess I just don't get why they had not talked about it before now and or why she would be holding it against her? It just felt odd.
Mo is dealing with not only losing her husband, but coming to grips that her husband she loved is dealing with the affects of Alzheimer's disease. Mo is pretty bitter about the fact that Daphne and Finn didn't have children since she doesn't feel as close to Una since she's not Finn's "real daughter." Such a mess. I was not a fan of Mo by the way at all while reading her sections. She tries to bully Daphne into quitting her job to reopen Finn's shop with her and doesn't care that Daphne doesn't want to. Whether she has a bustling career or not, it's still her life.
Isobel's POV felt like it could be her own book. She has a lot of regrets that she is dealing with now that she is almost 60. One of them is leaving her first husband for another man due to how that affected her relationship with her daughter Daphne. Isobel realizes too late how foolish it was to run from her first marriage to a man who ended up dumping her soon after to return to his own family. She is now married to 10 years to a man she realizes that she doesn't love and who doesn't love her. Isobel is determined though to get a bit of passion in her life and you get to read about her trying her best to meet men (yep still married) on a dating site.
Una feels more lost. Finn is her father (not her real father) her birth mother died when she was small and now she is left with her father's widow who she feels really doesn't want her around. Una goes around making a ton of mistakes throughout the book, but her story-line felt very real to me. I wish that it had been the second POV in the book or maybe the book should have really focused on just her and Daphne's POV. I would not have missed Mo's POV at all and as I already said, Isobel's read as weird to include here.
The writing was okay. I think the main issue was the flow was not that great. We go from the different POVs and then we are also jumping around in timelines. So if you start reading about Una, we have her going into what she has been up to almost for a year and going up to the present day in her POV chapter. It made things a bit confusing to read I found. The latter section (Friday, 29, April (A Year and a Bit Later) wraps things up nicely though (a bit too nicely). Meaney tries for a twist with a character and I thought that something else happened, but we get a surprise with her.