What's Next, Wednesday (108)

•  To play along share a book you've been looking forward to reading, whether it's new or has been on your reading list for a while.

I'm looking forward to... 

A Tycoon's Secret by Avery Laval. In this third installment of the Sin City series, two old flames are reunited. With so much history and a broken promise, the two will either work it out or have to call it quits for good. I'm excited to read this juicy romance and switch up my reading list a little bit. If these summer thunderstorms lay off, maybe I can even enjoy a little outside reading! 🌞

In a Jam

Andie Carson has to do three things to inherit her grandmother’s lottery winnings—sober up, spend a month running her grandmother’s Georgia coffee shop, and enter homemade jam in the county fair. If she can’t meet those terms, the money goes to the church, and Andie gets nothing. She figures her tasks will be easy enough, and once she completes them, Andie plans to sell the shop, take the money, and run back to Boston.

After a rough breakup from his crazy ex-fiancée, Officer Gunnar Wills decides to take a hiatus from women. All he wants is to help make his small town thrive the way it did when he was a kid. But when wild and beautiful Andie shows up, Gunnar’s hesitant heart begins to flutter.

Gunnar knows that Andie plans to leave, but he’s hoping to change her mind, fearful that if her coffee shop closes, Main Street will fold to the big-box corporations and forever change the landscape of his quaint community. But convincing her to stay means getting close enough to risk his heart in the process. Even though Gunnar makes small-town life seem a little sweeter, Andie has to decide if she’s ready to turn her world upside down and give up big-city life. One thing’s for sure—it’s a very sticky situation.

*May Contain Spoilers*

In a Jam by Cindy Dorminy was exactly what I wanted it to be! The book is a love story that's easy to slip right into and stay until the end. It was a perfectly enjoyable romance that I read in a single day. The characters were flawed but likable, while the plot was steady and interesting. 

Andie is a lonely woman who mistakes drinking buddies for real friends. She has a problem and, even though she knows it, she doesn't see a reason to change. Like many of us in this world, she craves connection. Her grandmother offers that with Andie's inheritance stipulations. However, it takes a while for Andie to see it that way. Andie is a woman with a beautiful heart and giving spirit. She's nice and accepting to everyone she meets, but she also knows how to stand up for herself. With the rules of the inheritance in place, Andie's grandmother is determined to give Andie the chance at a better life through her own death. All Andie has to do is follow the rules for six weeks and then she can do whatever she wants. But, through the trials that accompany her relocation, Andie realizes that what she thought she wanted, isn't actually what she desires. Readers will have multiple chances to connect with Andie throughout the novel whether it be emotionally or through her personality. 

Gunnar shares the role of narrator with Andie and offers readers another main character to connect with. Gunnar is a recovering playboy who had his heart broken by his ex-fiance. As he keeps an eye on Andie, he quickly realizes that he's falling for her and wonders if she would ever consider permanently relocating to his small town. I think readers will connect with his personality and quick wit at the beginning, but soon realize that there are more layers to Gunnar than it first seems. Through his past, that threatens to come back and wreak havoc, readers will feel invested in Gunnar's character and want him to win over Andie for a chance at happily ever after. 

With these two characters and a fun supporting cast, I would definitely recommend this book to lovers of romance and those readers who enjoy a book that keeps them turning pages. This book pulls you in from the beginning and, as hurdles keep popping up, the urge to keep going just becomes stronger and stronger. 

Rating: 4/5 Cups

Norwegian Wood

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is probably one of the strangest yet intriguing books I have ever read. Murakami utilizes a variety of themes to explore the love life and coming of age story of Toru. However, most of these themes are weighed down with the theme of death. As several characters in the novel commit suicide, I think Murakami uses the looming nature of death to highlight the difficulties of life. 

Toru is the main character and the narrator of the novel. He's a young college student who is learning to navigate the world of love, sex, and being an adult. His young adulthood has been heavily influenced by the suicide of his best friend that occurred a few years earlier. When he reconnects with his deceased best friend's former girlfriend, Naoko, Toru falls in love with her but must help her and recognize that she struggles with depression and (perhaps) other mental illness. 

Toru is a semi-likeable character as he's intelligent, morally guided overall, and mostly supportive of the few friends he has. I say 'mostly' because he does poke fun at his roommate and remains friends with a playboy, even participating in some one-night stands of his own. The main thing about Toru is that he is flawed so that makes him both relatable and influenced by the story's action. However, in that flawed nature, he isn't a very reliable narrator. He constantly doubts his memory which then transfers doubt to the reader. Within that doubt, readers still feel connected to Toru based on both his experiences and the emotions he evokes. Toru is a hopeful young man who is caught between a love of the past and a chance for love in the future. 

The entire story is a told as a flashback, as Toru relives the days of knowing Naoko because he hears a cover of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood." While Toru tells the story, he seems to get lost and the present becomes the memory while the past fully takes over. Though this book is interesting and pulls the reader in from the beginning, it is incredibly sad with no real conclusion. For as much emotional investment the book requires, it seems that the payoff would be bigger. Or at least, the conclusion more clear. Overall, I was dedicated to this book and kind of disappointed with how it ended. I almost felt like I was being punished for making it to the end. I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone and definitely not just anyone. In terms of literature, this book is interesting in the way it presents Westernization and cultural influences. However, I don't think everyone would be a fan. It's a book that requires contemplation and analysis to even begin to unpack everything that Murakami tackles. 

Rating: 3/5 Cups

 

Love in the Time of Cholera

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Love in the Time of Cholera is another example of a classic book that I never picked up without good reason. I've always wanted to read it, but there was also always another book that I needed to read first. Finally, with my current grad school class, I read this amazing novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 

The main characters, Florentino and Fermina, were secret teenage sweethearts in Latin America until Fermina's father found out about the connection and took Fermina away on a trip that would force her to realize that what she needed in adulthood was not love, but stability in all forms. With her hopes dashed and the crushing reality that life does not revolve around love, Fermina marries another - the serious yet quirky Dr. Urbino. More than fifty years later, the day of Dr. Urbino's death, Florentino reappears with the same promises that he loves Fermina and wants to be with her. But, Fermina still isn't sure. She's ruled by the dictations of society and the opinions of others. Through these characters, Marquez shares, with heavy doses of beautiful prose and magical realism, the story of a love that has lasted more than fifty years and now, near the end of life's cycle, has another chance. 

Though I didn't exactly like Fermina, I did understand her reasoning. Her motives and decisions make sense in a society that doesn't let anyone be who they really are. So, although I wanted her to choose love, I didn't blame her for rejecting Florentino. Though, Florentino's dedication to her was incredibly surprising. I still struggle to understand why he never moved on. He had other relationships with women and in reality, Florentino and Fermina didn't have that much time to really get to know each other's personality. So although the relationship is one that is difficult to understand, the feelings between them last nearly a lifetime. And in their old age, they get to be reunited. But then they struggle to accept the judgment that undoubtedly comes from their connection. The novel asks now that they're older, shouldn't they have grown out of falling in love? 

The plot of this novel begins with the death of one of Dr. Urbino's closest friends and the secrets revealed with it. As death becomes a reality for Urbino, it comes calling just hours later. Through flashbacks and memories, Marquez shares the story of the love that blossomed between Florentino and Fermina as young people, the rejection of Florentino by Fermina, the meeting of her and Dr. Urbino, their marriage, including their struggles, and Florentino's life without Fermina in it until they can be reunited through her widowhood. My favorite part about this book was the weight of the magic that hung on each page. Marquez writes of ghosts, feelings, and omens as if they were physical objects that could be touched. Though the novel and the details did become a little heavy at times, this book forces the reader to take it slow or risk missing an important detail. Though the characters were complex and not easy to like, or truly connect with, they were realistic and flawed. With an important focus on character and the amount of detail and subtlety in his writing style, I know for sure that I will definitely be reading more of Marquez's work and recommending him to anyone who hasn't read his books.

Rating: 4/5 Cups

What's Next, Wednesday (98)

•  To play along share a book you've been looking forward to reading, whether it's new or has been on your reading list for a while.

I'm looking forward to...

In a Jam by Cindy Dorminy. As I've enjoyed this author's previous books, I am super excited to start this one soon! Andie is set to inherit money from her grandmother... but there are a few stipulations. One is that she has to stick around a Georgia town long enough that she just might fall in love. That's the stipulation I'm most excited about. I might have to carve out a whole day to assign to this book! Then I won't have to put it down. :) 

Beloved

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Wow. I seriously cannot believe I have never read this book before now. Though, I can honestly say that I know if I would have read it any more than three or five years ago, I don't think it would have had the same emotional impact as reading it now. However, I also think that if I ever read this book again, the emotional impact will increase with my age as I, as a woman, can connect more and more with Sethe. 

Though I am not African American, I think Sethe's story transcends the differences between her and the female reader. Her story is raw and ugly and heartbreaking and gut-wrenching and horrifying. However, it is also hopeful and mystical, even though it's a little frightening throughout. I felt connected to Sethe through her guilt, her experiences, and her scars as Morrison bares all for her reader. I also felt connected to Sethe through her hope for the future, even though the guilt she feels over her past mistakes nearly kills her in the end. 

What I most enjoyed about this book were the mystical elements that surround Beloved's return and the interesting dynamic her ghostly figure created between the characters. However, again, Beloved also made the book a little scary as the reader doesn't know if Beloved has returned from the other side to offer peace, cause suffering, or a little of both. 

For readers who like novels that show no fear in telling a story that will prompt change -- this book will exceed expectations. It also has a lot to offer in social, cultural, and historical contexts as it takes place in the late 1800s. Though it was not by any means a 'happy' book, I'm glad I read it and even through the darkness, Beloved offers a feeling of brightness. 

Rating: 4/5 Cups

The Thursday Night Club and Other Stories of Christmas Spirit

A joyous and deeply emotional collection of three unforgettable Christmas novellas.

The Thursday Night Club: Five college friends, three men and two women, have been getting together every Thursday night to share humble meals and an abundance of laughter. But when tragedy takes one of them, leaving the others to question the fairness of life, the Thursday Night Club decides to embark on a contest in the memory of the generous spirit of their fallen brother. The objective of the contest is simple: whoever performs the kindest deed by Christmas night wins the pot – four quarters. And there are only two conditions: the benevolent deed must be anonymous, and it cannot cost a single penny to pull off. As the four friends undertake the contest, the healing begins and they become inspired beyond their expectations. There might be a winner in this competition, but it is very clear there will be no losers.

A Christmas Wish: Steph is on a search for truth in her heart as she faces the prospect of real love for the first time. Brian is out to enjoy his favorite season in a way that doctors never thought he could. And at the center of it all is their grandmother, affectionately known as Mama, a woman of remarkable commitment and charity who knows something very important about making Christmas wishes come true.

The Tin-Foil Manger: Published in this volume for the first time, this is the story of Nancy, an elderly woman with little to live for and Jeanne, the caretaker who wants to believe that Nancy has more to live for. Together, they embark on a journey to the past – a past of modest Christmases, tin-foil mangers, and abundant love – to rediscover the time when Nancy felt truly alive. Nancy’s memories and how they touch Jeanne, will turn this Christmas into one for the ages.

Rich with emotion and profound with meaning, these three stories of Christmas spirit that will strike a chord in your heart any time of year and make you look at the holiday season in new ways.

*May Contain Spoilers*

If you're ready to get in the holiday spirit, The Thursday Night Club and Other Stories will certainly have you on your way! Steven Manchester shares three heart-warming stories with his readers in this short, easy to read collection. 

I've previously reviewed The Thursday Night Club and therefore, will skip over it here. However, if you want to read my review, click here and enjoy. :)

Now, out of the two remaining stories, both compete as compassionate and moving. What I loved most about these stories was their subject matter. "A Christmas Wish" tackles an important and relevant topic: homosexuality. I love that Manchester brings this sometimes controversial topic into his collection of Christmas stories and shows it support. Bravo! The wish of the main character of this story is simply to learn how to accept herself and show her true self to the world. With her grandmother's help, this wish just might come true. Who am I kidding? It does! And it's beautiful. Self-identity is a hard thing to recognize and accept and through that emotional and universally human feeling, readers will connect with Steph and realize that the journey for self-acceptance is a deeply personal one that can and will be influenced by outsiders. 

"The Tin-Foil Manger" tackles a different topic: Alzheimer's and the struggle family members have with it. Though the daughters of Nancy are not presented in the best light, Nancy forms a deep friendship with one of her nurses, Jeanne, who is determined to help slow the advancement of Nancy's disease. After learning that Christmas was Nancy's favorite time of year, Jeanne decides to use that holiday season joy to try to bring Nancy back to the present. I enjoyed Jeanne's character and how dedicated she was to Nancy's care. It was also inspiring to see an elderly woman, who was essentially left alone by her family, find friendship and hope in her care facility. It was also enjoyable to read about the Christmas traditions of so many cultures around the world as Manchester fit them into Nancy's memories. Though the flashbacks got a little tenuous at times, it provided the story with a rich background of information. 

Overall, The Thursday Night Club and Other Stories shares the spirit of hope, generosity, acceptance, and love of the holiday season. They were stories that simply made me smile and I think other readers will enjoy reading them just as much. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

Fender

How far must we travel to find our way home?

Nothing could have prepared Brennan Glover for the car crash that claimed the lives of his wife and six-year-old daughter. Stricken with grief, the only things that get him through each day are breaking his sobriety and clinging to Fender—the family dog and the sole survivor of the crash.

Desperate to distance Brennan from tragedy, his two closest friends take him on the cross-country road trip they had always talked about. But what begins as an effort to mend his broken heart ends up unraveling a secret that changes everything he thought he knew about his family. Can a journey of six thousand miles lead Brennan to acceptance and new beginnings?

From finding the good in an often cruel world to learning to say goodbye to those we love most, this sophomore release from author Brent Jones is sure to leave readers longing for home, wherever that may be.

*Definitely Contains Spoilers*

Okay. So as a huge animal lover, going into this book I told myself that if the dog (Fender) died, then I don't know if I can finish it. I was wrong. Fender does die; I did finish the book. But that's thanks to Brent Jones' writing technique. Fender, the novel, is about a man who has lost everything except his beloved pet and struggles to find a way to want to keep living when his friends take him on a cross-country road trip to help him find his new beginning.

At the beginning of the novel, Brennan is a complete mess, and understandably so. His wife and daughter have just died in a car accident, an accident in which Fender, the family dog, survived. Brennan is wallowing in depression, an abundance of alcohol, and a cloud of cigarette smoke with no will to do anything. This immediately creates a connection with readers both sympathetically and empathetically. And it's when hope starts to creep into Brennen's inebriated mind that readers really push for him to find a way past this. 

Brennan is written as a very human, realistic character. He has positive and negative qualities that make him seem like an everyman type of character. These qualities are also gender neutral. I can definitely see these characteristics popping up in any person, not just men, and therefore I think the connection between readers and Brennan expands a little more. Brennan suffers from loss and the unknown. He turns to alcohol for relief and escape from reality. He's also a very caring human being. He's a dog lover who saved a stray. He's a parent who loved his child more than words. And he's reached a point where his life has become unrecognizable because he's experienced something that anyone could experience at any time: the loss of something he loved. This not only connects him to readers, but he sort of becomes representative of what readers could become. The path that we all pray our lives don't take. And that makes this book powerful, relatable, understandable, and scary. 

The plot of Fender revolves around the cross-country road trip. I agree with Jones when he says, if you've never driven across the country, you should do it. I have, a couple times. And it's different each time. It does seem to change your perspective a little bit and brings out what's important to you. It's also a great experience. However, Brennan's journey is about finding a way to start over with those he has left in his life: his two best friends and his dog. Yet, when his dog starts showing signs of being sick, the road trip shifts to a story about moving forward even when the past threatens to swallow you whole. I think readers who choose to pick up this book will gain a sense of inspiration and hope from Jones' story, but it wasn't exactly an easy read. It was a hard book to put down after I started it though. There's a sense of hope within the tragedy that kept me turning pages and I think a lot of readers will see that hope and gain a little something from the story. 

Rating: 4/5 Cups

Bonus: The author, Brent Jones, did actually take the road trip he writes about. He shared his photo experience on Twitter and you can view it here: Brent Jones Website! 

Savoring the Seasons (Chilton Crosse #4)

Julia Bentley spent her fortieth birthday doing what she always does, baking treats for the customers in her Cotswold bakery and taking care of her elderly father. She doesn’t realize how stagnant her life has become until a younger man, Tristan Hannigan, moves to the village and shows interest in her. As Julia becomes closer to Tristan, he begins to season her mundane days and to challenge how she views the world.

The relationship is threatened when Julia’s doubts and insecurities overwhelm her, and the secret she’s afraid to reveal creates a wedge between them. Will Julia choose the easy route, slipping back into her daily routine and living without love? Or will she find the courage to follow her heart and accept the love she deserves?

*May Contain Spoilers*

Traci Borum has brought readers another love story from Chilton Crosse with her fourth book in the series, Savoring the Seasons. With this installment, Julia, the town baker, is given a second chance at life and a new chance at real love, if she decides to take it. 

Julia Rose has helped her father run the bakery in Chilton Crosse for nearly her entire life. She did move to London once, attend school, and try marriage on for a bit, but it didn't seem to fit her. The bakery, however, does fit her and her routine of caring for her father. Julia's a woman in her forties who has accepted her life as it is. Nothing bad, but nothing overly delightful. Some may call it a rut. But when Tristan comes to town, a man eleven years her junior at twenty-nine, Julia starts to wonder if a little change could do her some good. 

As a character, Julia is sweet, incredibly caring, thoughtful, yet insecure and scared of claiming her identity. At times, it seems she can get caught up in what other people think about her so that she ends up being afraid to be herself. I think a lot of readers, myself included, can relate to that sometimes. These personality traits will initially connect Julia with readers, but her daunting secret that threatens her new relationship will bring readers closer to her emotionally. As a middle-aged woman, Julia has had some reproductive problems in the past and she's unable to have children. This frightens her in regard to her younger love interest, creating a serious insecurity that she'll have to share and move past if she wants to claim her happily ever after. With the combination of her personality, her fears, and, above all, her hopes, I think readers will definitely connect with Julia and care about her story as Borum shares the classic story of letting go of fear and making room for love -- and life -- to grow. 

The main plot of this book follows Julia and Tristan's love story. While being romantic, and emotionally complex, the book also shares the story of a community who comes together to celebrate one of their own. As a side plot, the bakery that Julia and her father own is coming up on its fortieth anniversary and a certain townsperson wants to throw an elaborate celebration. This celebration works to remove Julia from her comfort zone and get her more involved in the community, which (as it turns out) is exactly what she needed. 

The books of the Chilton Crosse series are always easy to read, heartwarming novels about love and family and community. Savoring the Seasons is no different. It's a perfect book to take your time with and enjoy the little truths about life and love that Borum explores. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

Read the reviews of previous books in the Chilton Crosse series: 

          

Marlena

Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat’s new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena’s orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts—first drink, first cigarette, first kiss—while Marlena’s habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Life as a teenager is nearly always rough. A time of self-exploration, a time of mistakes, and sometimes the beginning of something that stays with us forever. Marlena, by Julie Buntin, explores these themes, coupled with addiction, alcoholism, and the haunting nature of memory. As Cat recounts a year of her life with imperfect hindsight, readers are taken down a horrifying, blunt, and, at times, crude memory lane where the end result is always the same: Marlena is dead.

The aspect of Cat's character that struck me as the most important in regard to the story is her unreliable nature. After her parents' divorce and her move to rural Silver Lake, Cat met Marlena and started drinking at the age of fifteen. She openly admits repeatedly throughout the novel that her memory isn't perfect, it's scarred and blurred with drugs and alcohol. At one point, she even admits to omitting things, casting Marlena in an ethereal, angelic light, even though she was a bad influence as well as a suffering young woman. One paragraph hit me in particular, blatantly telling me that Cat as a narrator is not to be trusted: 

The truth is both a vast wilderness and the tiniest space you can imagine. It's between me and her, what I saw and what she saw and how I see it now and how she has no now. Divide it further---between what I mean and what I say, who I am and who I appear to be, who she said she was and acted like she was and also, of course, who she really was... Imagine all these perspectives like circles in a Venn diagram, a tiny period in the middle... Maybe that is the truth. But my version of the story is all we f*cking get (Buntin 231). 

With this admission, readers see Cat as not only unreliable but self-deprecating. Cat doesn't trust herself, therefore she doesn't inspire much trust from her readers. And yet, we believe her. The story is so intoxicating and absorbing that we ignore her misgivings. We ignore her warnings and try to see the truth behind the inconsistency of her memory. Cat plays to the reader so that we both understand her and Marlena. We see the struggle Cat has with her parent's divorce and how she loses interest in success and all she can think about is escape. I even think we recognize that as a feeling we've experienced. And in this, Marlena becomes a myth-like figure, a warning, an inspiration. Chaotically beautiful in her own destruction. All of this culminates in a pulling, a luring, in of the reader. Fed by the storyline and the prematurely revealed ending that Marlena is dead.

Through these recognizable, understandable, and emotional characteristics of Cat, readers are immediately drawn to her. She's a struggling adult who suffered physically and emotionally as a teenager, though much of it was self-inflicted. However, there are no feelings of blame elicited from the book. I didn't blame Cat's parents, Marlena, or Cat herself, which I found very interesting. Well, maybe I blamed Cat's dad a little bit... but still. The writing style of Buntin leaves room for reader interpretation and I love when a book does that.

The real hook for me in regard to the plot is that Cat has no idea what really happened with Marlena's death. The storyline follows Cat's family moving to Silver Lake, Cat meeting Marlena, the next door neighbor, and then falling down this rabbit hole of destruction that led to Marlena's death. The whole book seems to revolve around a promise Cat made to never forget Marlena and that has haunted her for the past fifteen plus years. Readers truly see how much Marlena's friendship and death affected Cat so that Marlena's memory became her albatross. Marlena is truly a book that haunts, a book that forces a change of perspective, a jaunt down memory lane that scars and blurs the surrounding landscape and especially a book that questions the reliability of memory. I would recommend Marlena to readers who enjoy unsolved mysteries, the exploration of friendship and relationships and those who don't inch away from danger and dirty secrets.

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

The Unexpected Daughter

Three people’s lives intersect in a tumultuous yet redeeming way that none of them could have ever predicted. Jenny is a young professional from the South with an upbringing she wants to forget. She meets Roshan, an Indian immigrant who has moved to the United States with his mother, Esha, to escape family ghosts. With strong cultural tradition, Esha has devoted her entire life to her only child, both for his own good and for her personal protection from a painful past. Roshan understands his role as his mother’s refuge, and from an early age, he commits himself to caring for her. But when Jenny and Roshan embark on a forbidden, intercultural relationship, all three get tangled into an inseparable web—betrayal, violence, and shame—leaving them forced to make choices about love and family they never wanted to make while finding peace where they never expected to look.

*Contain Spoilers*

Cultures clash in this story of love, trust, pain, and loss. Sheryl  Parbhoo writes a realistic portrayal of an American girl and an Indian boy falling in love and dealing with adultery, cultural expectations, and alcoholism in her novel The Unexpected Daughter. 

It's my belief that it takes a powerful writer to introduce a character that's easy to hate and then slowly change the mind of the reader throughout the story. Parbhoo does just that in this book as the characters introduced are fundamentally flawed and then given the chance to change for the better. Jenny, Roshan, and Esha are the three main character and the chapters shift between their points of view as the story unfolds. 

Jenny is a young woman who came from a very poor family, with an alcoholic father and a drug addicted mother. She struggles to trust anyone and believes that she is the only one she can depend on. Her goal of becoming a dentist solidifies her identity as a woman who can take care of herself. Yet, her feelings for Roshan are constant. 

Roshan is an Indian man who dreamed of being an artist. Yet, with a dead father who was an abusive alcoholic, his dreams were forced to change, in order to fit in with what his culture expected of him. Therefore, he also became a dentist and had an arranged marriage, even though he was in love with Jenny. Roshan's character was the one that I did not like for most of the book. And by 'most of the book' I mean up until the last couple pages. It wasn't his rebellious attitude that I didn't like, but his treatment of Jenny, the wishy-washy treatment of his mother, the fact that he knew he had a problem with alcohol but ignored it (even kept it a secret), and how he blamed everything on his culture. 

Though Parbhoo does an excellent job in relaying what Indian men are expected to do with their lives, it didn't make Roshan any easier to like. The further I got in the book, the more I hated him. I especially disliked how he cheated on his first wife. I understand that he wasn't happy, but then why did he marry her? It was an arranged marriage, but if it was going to end up badly anyway, then why go through it? I know hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy for me to judge a book character, but I just couldn't get over it. It made it really hard for me to like Roshan as he always created problems for himself but barely worked toward any solutions. However, in the last chapter, it seemed that the rehab facility Roshan attended really did help him. Yet, I felt more connected with Jenny, as she simply agreed to move forward and see what happened instead of condemning Roshan to his past mistakes. 

Esha is Roshan's mother and as mothers play a large role in Indian cultures, she played a big role in Roshan's life. At first, I didn't like her, but I also didn't understand her. Throughout the book, Esha's true self is revealed and she becomes more than just a judgemental woman who forces her opinions onto others. The influence of the culture is really explored through Esha and it's through her character that there is also a lot of growth in the book. She comes to understand that Jenny is a good person who loves her son, has her own demons, and is scared of being a single mom. Through the story, I found Esha and Jenny's relationship to be the most intriguing, as Jenny becomes Esha's unexpected daughter and Jenny learns how to be a mother from her unexpected daughter. 

The storyline is quite complicated, but it basically follows Jenny and Roshan's relationship from college graduation until after the birth of their child. Along the way, a lot of issues and topics are covered including arranged marriage, cultural differences and influence, the importance of family, religion, motherhood, fatherhood, alcoholism, drug addiction, and much much more. Parbhoo packs a lot of detail into her story which really brings it to life. I think readers who enjoy learning about other cultures and giving second chances will like this book, even if the characters are a little harder to connect with. 

Rating: 3/5 Cups