Kate Mohova Mohova itibaren Březina, Czech Republic itibaren Březina, Czech Republic

I'm not quite sure how I felt about this book. Certainly I admired the gorgeous writing and I had positive feelings about the secondary characters, even the Coward, who has buried himself in the Marshes, and in an alcoholic fog, after his failure to rescue his wife from a fire. I especially took to Gwen and Hank, the two teenagers who grow in believable ways over the course of the book until Gwen seems more mature and grounded than her mother, March, the book's central character. And this is where I lost my suspension of disbelief. I frankly found it hard to swallow March's utter and slavish devotion to her girlhood love, Hollis, even when she was 13. But that his obsession with Hollis should still be in full sway of her when she's 40 - and has a kind and loving husband, no less - made me long to give her a piece of my mind. Hollis is brutal, controlling, possessive, and dishonest. Even a 13-year-old should have had more sense than to built a romantic fantasy on such unpromising ground. Love is blind, I know, but this relationship, as Gwen - and just about everybody else - is smart enough to see, has nothing to do with love. So why is March so deluded? After awhile I found it hard to care about a woman so eager to offer herself as a victim to such an unappetizing man.

This book is alright. It forces you to really think about what it's like to watch someone you love suffer from mental illness. However, I don't feel I came away with much valuable knowledge from this book. I already understood that living with mental illness is extremely difficult for everyone involved, and the people in this book don't deal with it any better or worse than average.