She has not lived enough life to have made any mistakes or have any defining characteristics. At a family wedding, the four Sorenson sisters polka-dot the green lawn in their summer pastels, with varying shades of hair and varying degrees of unease. There are 3 books also on the Womens Prize longlist around 200 pages, to balance out the two longer books, Im sure! Overarching it all is the unusually ardent connection between Marilyn and David Sorenson. All Rights Reserved. But while I thought a lot of those details were just characterization tactics and a critique of wealthy white suburbia, it is definitely understandable that they would be unpleasant to read anyway. Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby shes not sure she wants by a man shes not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. help you understand the book. Though each is sympathetic and suffering in their own way, they do all make poor choices, sometimes for bad reasons. Synopsis (from cover): When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all thats to come. I cared and cringed and chuckled and cried with each of the four sisters and their parents (and then theres the third gen of kids). The Most Fun We Ever Had (TV Series) - Release Info - IMDb Edit The Most Fun We Ever Had Release Info Showing all 2 items Jump to: Release Dates (0) Also Known As (AKA) (2) Release Dates It looks like we don't have any release dates for this title yet. All of her complaints are definitely in the book. I was cautiously optimistic about this years list at first since so many of the titles surprised me- I was hoping that Id find some hidden depths to these titles that I hadnt been expecting, but unfortunately its not turning out that way. Even family interactions elicit a mix of exasperation and comfort. Lets start with Wendy, the eldest daughter. Also: David and Marilyn love each other madly. Marilyn Connelly and David Sorenson's love for each other has more than survived the decades, they have 4 now adult daughters, Wendy, Violet, Liza and Grace who have felt pressured to emulate the loving example of their parents. I just noticed how long this book is. The Most Fun We Ever Had is an ambitious and brilliantly written first novel, sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking, but its unrelenting nature and lack of context is ultimately off-putting . Ah yes, I was so confused about what the author was trying to say about marriage, since all of these characters seemed so quick to condemn this really successful one! A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built. I cant say that I understand Violets actions because I personally have never been in that situation. Its one of those lovely meandering, literary tales that weaves the story of a family over a long period of time. The Sorenson daughters all witness their parents sharing an intimate moment beneath the gingko tree and are awestruck at their love. Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. Liza gets pregnant and appears to follow in Violets footsteps. (LogOut/ " The Most Fun We Ever Had is a remarkable first-time novel offering such an intimate picture of people's interior lives I feel as if every one of these characters is now a close friend. Get help and learn more about the design. It certainly made the book more bearable because I wouldn't have lasted till the 50% mark if I was reading the book. , i read this book last year and didnt like it at all, so its been so interesting to see what people have been saying in their reviews of it now that its on the womens prize longlist! Claire Lombardos dbut, The Most Fun We Ever Had, chronicles the life of a family over the course of a year, yet it passes as quickly as the pages turn. Change). A full book review of "The Most Fun We Ever Had" by Claire Lambardo. This book makes you feel emotions you never knew you had. As for the audiobook, the narration was decent or I would've dropped the audio even if I had nothing else to listen to. In Claire Lombardo's debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, she isn't afraid to tackle the biggest of topics, specifically for womensisterhood, fear, general annoyance and birth or the absence of it.The reader gets an intimate look at the conception of the Sorenson family (literally, considering Lombardo's plethora of sex scenes), giving narrative control to each member: Marilyn and . Back to reviews with another Womens Prize longlist title! That book, which. Some of those remarks are challenged a bit on the page, like the daughter who says her mom is in schizoid mode is berated for it right after by other characters present. Violet quickly departs avoiding the now fifteen year-old Jonah. Ridges deafness doesnt impede their relationship or their music. A character driven book needs characters that I actually like. Wendy offers to take in Jonah, but the two hid the pregnancy from their parents so they must tell David and Marilyn about Jonah. I think they mean that the characters all met their retirement goals during the same scenario, not that they met them after playing only one scenario. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. David has a heart attack and falls from the gingko tree. The main action of this notably apolitical, all-white, all-straight novel takes place over four seasons, beginning in the spring of 2016 which finds just about every member of the Sorenson family in turmoil. Oof, I just noticed this review on Goodreads, which may have shut the door for me: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2859759789?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1. I found the dynamics between characters highly entertaining and enjoyed the writing, but even so I think Lombardo couldve shaved off two hundred pages without losing anything crucial. From this glimpse alone the reader can see that there is plenty of interest going on beneath the surface of this happy family, though we soon come to learn that their mother doesnt know half of it. Based on Claire Lombardo's 2019 novel of the same name, "The Most Fun We Ever Had" follows four sisters, each struggling to exist in the shadow of their parents' idyllic marriage, whose. You have to really like these characters to spend time in their lives and inside their heads for days at a time. She wonders how her daughters could have all turned out so markedly different, not only from one another but also from her. The Most Fun We Ever Had is a well-structured story that shares the characters' backstory adroitly, never all at once, but in reveals that feel well-timed, well-placed. October 15, 2019 11:00am. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Sydney and Ridge make beautiful music together in a love triangle written by Hoover (Losing Hope, 2013, etc. I think of Grace as the color gray. Claire E. Lombardo is a fiction writer from the Chicago area. Every page contains vital information that contributes to the story. Claire Lombardo's debut novel seems to go on forever. Their parents were good with them but I guess, too good. Spanning nearly half a century, and set against the quintessential American backdrop of Chicago and its prospering suburbs, Claire Lombardos debut explores the triumphs and burdens of love, the fraught tethers of parenthood and sisterhood, and the baffling mixture of affection, abhorrence, resistance and submission we feel for those closest to use. But heres the thing Lombardo renders that obsession with such skill and finely tuned interest that it feels like a quiet subversion of the traditional family saga, a new way for the past to bless or poison the present and an unexpected engine for the revelations about being human that she delivers so beautifully. 1 views, 0 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Scooter: Haunted Explorations - Overnight Challenge - Exploring With Josh!! Ohhhh! It will make you feel sad for some characters, be rooting for others and want to reach through the book and slap another. The ruthless competitiveness between these sisters is the driving force of the novel. Its one to be savored. It is a stellar. Liza asks her father to connect with his colleague Gillan Levin to deliver her baby. Sure, David and Marilyn might have had four daughters several people for whom things can go wrong but need all of them be plagued by multiple unresolved demons? Lombardo, a Chicago native and recently minted University of Iowa MFA graduate, has crafted an intricate multigenerational saga about the vicissitudes of a passionate but not perfect marriage over a 40-year span. PQ Spoilers: Zealot will do final exhaustion, which will also be final exhaustion for Anatomy, Trophy Hunt only needs one more unique, Helping Hand will witness it all. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Design a site like this with WordPress.com. Having sailed on Disney Cruise Line's newest ship, Disney Wish, which is still in its first year of operations, along with both Disney Dream and Disney Wonder, I was curious h I love domestic fiction, especially ones that examine marriages, sibling rivalries, and socioeconomically differences. April 15, 2000. That child, Jonah, the returned observer of this cloistered world, is as fascinated by David and Marilyns love as their daughters. I hope youll have a good time with it if/when you pick it up! I really enjoy books with different perspectives and this one definitely satisfied all of my perspective needs. A marathon of instability and hair products. Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. But I expect more from the Womens Prize than a simple good time, and I didnt find any standout depth or technical skill here. Lombardo describes falling for someone as feeling accompanied in a way she had never before, by a person who was choosing to feel beholden to her instead of simply scooting up the rope of familial obligation. The novel shines brightest in the moments in which Lombardo is able to probe into the psyche of her female characters to express something that feels universal, yet somehow fresh. Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men . The really tragic thing about this spoiler is that whoever has created it probably thinks that they have been really creative and innovative, whereas, in reality, they have just made their slightly shabby sports car look even trashier. 2019 En lyckligare tid. Marilyn wonders, "Didn't her daughters know that what she and David had took work, had always taken work? Things seem to snowball out of control, and perhaps for a reader it seems like a bit much, but Lombardos inclusion of all the minutiae are also true to life: This is how life actually is. Ooh nope, its one of the four girls who gives a son up for adoption, hes a grandson of the girls parents! But you don't mind, because the Chicago-based clan of THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD is definitely worth getting to know. His return years later is what wakes everyone up to the enormity of what the four daughters have been hiding. Yet these lush details almost seem to weigh the novel down. (Perhaps!) Across all of these moments, The Most Fun We Ever Had demonstrates the duality of affection and pain in familial relationships, showing that what holds people together can also drive them apart, and that it is after all easiest to hurt the ones we love. I was wrong about who the father of that child was though. This was quite a delightful debut. . The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace. This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Most Fun We Ever Had. Sixteen years earlier. It also leads to Lombardo's heartwarming takeaway: "If this family had taught him anything it was that people could get mad at each other and then make up again. There are much better family sagas out there with better stories and fewer pages. Violet also makes amends with Jonah. Set in the Chicago suburbs, Lombardo's book has been compared to The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen's seminal ode to a dysfunctional Midwestern family. The Most Fun We Ever Had proceeds in a steady march through the Sorensons' major life events to reveal how the daughters a blindsided widow; a tightly strung stay-at-home mom with a law degree; a tenured professor facing solo parenting; and the perpetual afterthought of the family, a recent college graduate caught up in an embarrassing lie came to the messy pass in which we find them. There were so many great contenders on the longlist last year that I wouldve loved to see win above An American Marriage, even though AAM was a 4-star read for me. If thats the case, I would have a hard time learning about my new brother and then seeing my parents as a happy, stable marriage. Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. If this book were a meal it would be a 10-course dinner with quite a few savory morsels, but settle in because youll be cutting through a bit of fat and gristle and theres going to be a lot chewing. Oh, jeez. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Where to start this book was amazing in so many different ways. There was a lot of repetition and I honestly wanted to skip some pages when the characters really got on my nerves. Claire Lombardo, 2019. After a while, you feel that you've always lived with the Sorenson family, and always will. This isnt a fast read. Naturally, from the inside it is not without its peaks and valleys. Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Liza asks her father to connect with his colleague Gillan Levin to deliver her baby all seven deadly sins a... These lush details almost seem to weigh the novel down of time Most fun We Ever had quot... 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