Another book about a family (two families, in this case) in which all or most of the members are hard to like. I almost put this book down in the first few chapters; I just couldn't read another novel in which the overprivileged whine about how much their privilege costs them. Then the story--and the characters--got a little deeper. She almost lost me in the middle with a truly gruesome subplot, and frankly I'm still not sure what the point of all that was; I think the character in question could have moved from beginning to his end in a fluid arc that made perfect sense without the complete nastiness of the interim fate Shriver gives him. (And if you've read the book, you know who and what I mean).

But I loved the end section of this book. I didn't think I would, but I did. It almost made the whole journey worthwhile.

One huge issue: the adult women are "beautiful" and we are told that again and again, as though it were a definition of character; their respective husbands and children seem cowed by this "beauty". It was boring. The men and the children were much more interesting to read about; they had flaws both physical and emotional. Shriver also plays repeatedly on a theme of weight gain as malady. In a book which centers on the very severe illnesses of several characters, I felt a little sick every time the author treated extra pounds like a plague that ruins lives. I can't shake the sentence in which the "one sick kid and one fat one" of a character are stated as equal burdens. (Come to think of it, it echoes the way the "beauty" of the wives is treated as a consolation for the men).