Motherland by Amy Sohn
This book is to literature what All My Children is to television… pure soap! It centers around the yuppie neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn, where apparently no one really likes their kids, their spouses or their lives. Every character is either cheating or being cheated on by their spouse, and the kids are resented for their mere existence. The children are responsibilities and chores and not redeeming in any way. And all that everyone really thinks about is having sex. All the time.
The book also reads like a few stories combined into one with the characters intersecting at different points. There are few actually likeable characters, which makes the book hard to connect with. And the choppiness of the story leaves many threads dangling without resolution.
I have to confess, the only character I found truly amusing was the stroller stealer in the neighborhood! Fed up with the yuppie moms who left strollers all over the neighborhood, this thief made what I considered quite the statement. I kind of respected that…
Anyway, as you might have guessed, while this held my attention, it was not a great literature.
kindread spirits 