Elizabeth Wrenn

"As Kipling's soldier found out, it's hard to knuckle your forelock to the Squire when you've seen the sunset over Kilimanjaro."
A long sea voyage to Africa as a child has an indelible effect on the author. Sea fever and a desire for freedom lead her to spend a life on the move, always looking round ‘the next corner'. Whether sailing a yacht in Venezuela, navigating English canals in a yacht or touring the Continent in motor homes, there is always somewhere to move on to. Sunsets, storms and a wealth of stories make this a book that will live in the memory.… (mer)

Je me suis sentie tres connectee avec Deena. J'ai 10 ans de moins mais je fais probablement trop pour mes enfants, je me nois dans le quotidien, mon couple est parfois bien houleux.
Les 2 messages du livre m'ont vraiment parle: 1. commencer pas se concentrer sur soi pour retrouver la voie de l'epanouissement personnel (c'est du bon sens mais c'est aussi tellement naturel de s'attaquer aux autres plutot qu'a soi-meme). 2. se donner du temps. Rien ne se resoud en un claquement de doigt, il faut perseverer. Et contrairement aux films, la reparation du mariage de Deena ne se fait pas soudainement des qu'elle a decide de se rapprocher de son mari. C'est sain et ca booste.
Style tres agreable, une multitude de details notamment par rapport au chien mais qui se devorent meme si on n'a pas la fibre animale.… (mer)

I'm Not The Reader for this, or most other, women's fiction. Even though I fit the demographics. I'm only 4 years younger than the main character, and I'm also a SAHM, with 3 kids, one in college. Perhaps that's why.

If I were capable of putting down a book once I've started it, I'd have put this one down after the first chapter or two. Not because of the writing, which was great--unobtrusive and clean--but because I did not like Deena. She's martyred herself to her family, and resents them for it. She's obsessed with housework, lets her teenage kids walk all over her, and this was the part that pushed me over the edge:

"Why were women supposed to take hormones in order to be horny? Why weren't men pressured to take hormones to make them able to have three thoughts and not have two of them be about sex?"

That quote had me ranting to my husband for a good half-hour.

But I'm not capable of not finishing a book. I'm always afraid I'll miss something good if I don't. And that would have been the case with this one.

Deena realizes she's lost herself somewhere in immersing herself in her family, so when she stumbles across a program to raise puppies to be guide dogs for the blind, she decides to do something for herself and signs up. The details were just fascinating.

In the process of raising the puppy, she learned things about raising her children and that it is possible to be yourself and have a family; that she didn't have to leave her husband and family to rediscover herself. Most importantly, for me, she realized that a lot of her problems were of her own making, and that redeemed the book for me.… (mer)