Visit Your Local Library

I'd heard good things about Anna Quindlen's book "One True Thing," so when I got a chance to go to our nearest library, I looked her up. The only one of her books that was available was "Blessings," so I checked it out. The librarian had just finished it, and gave me a lukewarm revue. She said it was an easy and quick read, and nothing to get excited about.

It begins quite well. The first few chapters made me hopeful that it was going to be quite good. On the very first page, there is a lovely counterpoint between deer in the fields and the teenage girl in the car preparing to dump off her baby. There's some decent prose here, "The moonlight slipping at an oblique angle through the windows and the windshield of the car picked out what there was of her to be seen: a suggestion of the whites of her eyes between the curtains of her hair, the beads of sweat on her arched upper lip, the silver chain around her neck, the chipped maroon polish on her nails - a jigsaw puzzle of a girl, half the pieces not visible."

The overall story starts with a teenage couple dumping off their newborn baby at a large house called Blessings. The young man who is the grounds keeper finds the baby, and attempts to care for the little girl. The woman who owns the house and grounds, her housekeeper, the housekeepers daughter, and eventually the woman's daughter all become pulled into the story. This story becomes a way to tell the homeowner's life story as memories flash back to her. The sub story is the unfolding maturing and self-awareness of the groundskeeper.

I think it starts out rather strong, but gets lost along the way. For a while I was intrigued by the unfolding of the homeowner Lydia's story, and the story of her family. But by the end of the book, and the last of the story is revealed, I was tired of it. Her life review revelations felt forced into the story by the end, instead of naturally together. The story of the groundskeeper, Skip, and the baby was intriguing at the beginning. It caused him to ask alot of great questions, and push at his life in some great ways. But by the end, the baby goes from being a real person in this story to being a prop, which was hugely disappointing.

It was a quick and easy read. Parts were quite enjoyable. The main characters developed pretty well to a point. But I was left feeling a sense of emptiness and incompleteness as I finished it. The ending was pat and convenient, which didn't fit the story of people struggling with pasts, presents and sense of futures that were anything but simple and pat. I was disappointed.

So I also give this a luke warm revue. It is an easy read. It has some enjoyable moments, and some nice prose. Don't look for a whole lot of depth, for anything to really sink your teeth into, in this. Still, it wasn't a waste of time either.

Maybe put this under the summer read category, or the easy read category.