By Joyce Maynard
The Good Daughters, is a novel about two families. Both of them had given birth to daughters. Each daughter grows up differently from their families. One family grows up in the city on the northeast with one brother. The other grows up with lots of sisters and brothers.
I have not had much time with school to write this review. So, I am giving a short and sweet version. I am so sorry, because this book deserves alot more attention that it is getting. I have been raving about this since I read it to all my bookish friends. I was so amazed that I have not noticed her work before this time.
I love the story, it is very different than anything I have ever read. I don't want to tell you too much or it would be spoil the book. I will just say I loved it. If you like contemporary stories with familial situation than this book is for you.
I just finished Labor Day, penned by the same author. I was hoping Good Daughters would be as good as Labor Day. I did not expect it to be as good. It was and even surpassed Labor Day. I would recommend reading both of them. Both books are stand alone. I would though read Labor Day to get a taste of the author's writing. What a good author she is. I did not get this novel from the publisher. I bought this, and it was worth every penny I paid for it.
Thank you Joyce. This novel is even better than Labor Day, which I loved too.
I did not expect the book to turn out the way it did. It has a twist that makes sense why the two families are interconnected.
I did read a few reviews that did not like Good Daughters. I don't care to me I loved this book. I am a bit cloudy about the actually events of the novel. So I am not going to tell you in detail.
Synopsis from the flap:
They were born on the same day, in the same small New Hampshire hospital, into families that could hardly have been less alike.
Ruth Plank is an artist and a romantic with a rich, passionate, imaginative life. The last of five girls born to a gentle, caring farmer and his stolid wife, she yearns to soar beyond the confines of the land that has been her family's birthright for generations.
Dana Dickerson is a scientist and realist whose faith is firmly planted in the natural world. Raised by a pair of capricious drifters who waste their lives on failed dreams, she longs for stability and rootedness.
Different in nearly every way, Ruth and Dana share a need to make sense of who they are and to find their places in a world in which neither has ever truly felt she belonged. They also share a love for Dana's wild and beautiful older brother, Ray, who will leave an indelible mark on both their hearts.
Told in the alternating voices of Ruth and Dana, The Good Daughters follows these "birthday sisters" as they make their way from the 1950s to the present. Master storyteller Joyce Maynard chronicles the unlikely ways the two women's lives parallel and intersect—from childhood and adolescence to first loves, first sex, marriage, and parenthood; from the deaths of parents to divorce, the loss of home, and the loss of a beloved partner—until past secrets and forgotten memories unexpectedly come to light, forcing them to reevaluate themselves and each other.
Moving from rural New Hampshire to a remote island in British Columbia to the '70s Boston art-school scene, The Good Daughters is an unforgettable story about the ties of home and family, the devastating force of love, the healing power of forgiveness, and the desire to know who we are.