I liked it a lot even though it didn't really have a story arc. Mum is writing a fulsome and regretful history of her family, mourning all the things that didn’t turn out as she’d hoped, and what happened to her daughters, and how different it all should have been. Her sparkiest daughter is reading along and writing about her irritation about everything Mum is saying. Disappointed because she never married? Hardly! A death in the family stretches everyone, but doesn’t change much, which is what would probably happen in real life, so that's fine. ( )

A good book, but didn't engage me as much as other books by the same author have done. It's basically a two hander, Rosemary is reading through her mother's diary-cum-memoir and interjecting with her own views on events as Penelope relates the story of her life and family from her own point of view. Generally I like to see a story told from two different viewpoints neither of which can be relied on too much and I'm also quite happy to read about characters I don't like or don't find sympathetic. Although I liked the switching of the narration, and I alternately liked and disliked both the narrators I ended up disliking pretty much everyone in the book and not caring what happened to any of them. Ultimately I was happy to put it down and move on. ( )

http://lonelymountain.net/books/index.html#forsterpp ( )