The Book: Songs Without Words, by Ann Packer
The Story: Liz and Sarabeth grow up next door to each other until Sarabeth’s mother commits suicide, then they grow up as sisters. Liz’s family takes Sarabeth in and the last few years of high school are spent together. This book follows their journey over the next few decades. They are friends through everything: the death of parents, through marriages and relationships and the birth of children and just life. When Liz’s daughter makes a disastrous, terrible decision, for the first time a wedge is driven between Liz and Sarabeth. Their struggle to figure things out on their own and then to reconcile their relationship fills the later half of this book. Ultimately it is a story of the struggle to just survive and the people we surround ourselves with to join in that struggle.
What I Thought: I bought this because I loved the cover. When I realized that it was written by the same woman who wrote The Dive From Clausen’s Pier… then it went to the bottom of my TBR pile for over a year. Last week, I wanted a serious, girly book and this is the only one in my pile that fit that bill, so I went for it.
I liked this one so much more than her first novel.
To be honest, it was pretty dark and parts were really dull. The storyline itself was weak and the circumstances that the characters got into were fairly unbelievable. The saving grace though, and what made this book compulsively readable for me was the characters. I really loved Lauren, Liz’s teenage daughter. The book was written in third person, and I really felt like, of all the characters, Lauren’s voice was captured the best. Her angst seems real and almost justified. Watching her spiral down and then try to heal was worth the hours it took to read the book. Really good stuff.
Sarabeth’s depression spiral was quite a bit more melodramatic and annoying and, really, I didn’t all the way understand what she was so upset about. Her character in general kind of bothered me, but I think that she was supposed to.
I think that the thing that Ann Packer does best is dialogue. This is a hard thing for author’s to capture because how we talk to each other is so complex and emotional, and Ann Packer kind of captured this in a really graceful way.
The part that really bothered me was (and I know how stupid this sounds) Sarabeth’s job designing lampshades. From how they are described, they belong at a church craft fair but Sarabeth sells them for enough money to live. From reading about these and the stupid robe the girl sewed in Dive from Clausen’s Pier make me think that Ann Packer’s house would be hideous to me… and for some reason it really annoyed me that she wanted to describe all the stupid lampshades.
Conclusion: Meh. I could take this or leave it. If you have a teenage daughter or friend that is dealing with depression, this may be a great way to get inside of their head. Outside of that, I think that there are way better books to spend your time on.