Get On With Your Life!

I've been reading quite a few novels this year and I started one last week that I almost put down after the first 50 pages . . . The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. I seem to have picked up several books to read where the main character is a woman who is drifting in a bad relationship and it takes her 350 pages to realize that or a woman who has let some event in her life take over and ruin relationships and opportunities for the rest of the book.

One thing said or one lousy relationship, is one thing said or one lousy relationship. Get over it! Get on with your life! Now I know that some things can happen which one might never get over . . . the loss of a child, the loss of sight, an accident that leaves the body badly damaged. But hearing that you were adopted isn't enough to spend the next 40 years of your life running away from the wonderful family that you had.

Fortunately, I hung in there with The Forgotten Garden and it did get better. Morton was pretty skillful in the way she jumped back and forth through four generations. And the way she wove in the fairy tales which are very much a part of the book. I guess I need to cut some slack for authors. They have to start with something on which to build a story. But I have to tell you authors, if your lead women characters keep flopping around in resentment, pity and anger and they don't start moving on within about the first 50 pages, I'm putting the book down unless you are one hell of a writer.

The best book I've read this year was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Strong women in that book.