Emily is flying high. She has just met Adam, the man of her dreams – gorgeous, sweet, successful – and it feels too good to be true. Especially after having been burned by her previous boyfriend. She just knows it is right this time, they fit together so perfectly. So why is she so uncomfortable around his mother, Pammie? Why is it that every time they are with Pammie, she feels left out, intentionally snubbed, or worse? Emily is trying so hard to please her – why is Adam not seeing this? Why won’t he defend her? As it becomes more and more Emily’s mission to “out” Pammie and her obvious lying, she becomes more and more entangled in Adam’s family dysfunction. Will she ever be able to get Adam to see the truth?
There are many stories in which I feel that I cannot turn away; yet this one is one in which I felt frustrated not to be able to turn the main character away! More than once, I heard myself almost yelling out of frustration with Emily, admonishing her to just walk away from her untenable situation. I can’t imagine how she’d persist – how anyone would persist – and stay determined to salvage her relationship, in spite of what is clearly a destructive, even demented state of affairs. But then, so many do, right? Even when we see how unhealthy, how not normal, how even abusive a relationship might be. We believe we will fix things, we will convince the other to change. What I did not expect was the VERY surprising ending, which caught me totally off-guard and which made the whole book worth reading, after all.
So while this was something of a torturous experience – of course, all in the spirit of the fun of reading – it built into a worthwhile, albeit a bit insane, venture.
I would LOVE to know what others think of this one! Comments please???
kindread spirits 