The most recent book I have finished is Between Here and
April by Deborah Copaken Kogan. Overall
I really enjoyed this book. It
progressed nicely and even though it didn’t end exactly how I wanted it to I
still enjoyed it. There were a couple
minor details that I didn’t like, but those details didn’t affect my overall
feelings towards the book.
Between Here and April starts with the main character,
Elizabeth Burns watching the play Medea with her husband Mark. During the play Elizabeth passes out after having a “vision” of sorts of her
childhood best friend April Cassidy.
After that initial incident during the play, Elizabeth continues to have
both physical and mental episodes that she ends up tracing back to her friend
April. She finally goes to a therapist
to try and get to the bottom of the situation.
While in one of her sessions, Elizabeth confronts the fact that
seemingly out of nowhere her childhood best friend April had vanished, never to
return to class again. Elizabeth had
long forgotten about her until 30 years later.
Determined to figure out what had happened to April, Elizabeth uses her
journalist background to return to her childhood home to investigate the
disappearance of April. Elizabeth
uncovers a newspaper article revealing that April, April’s sister Lily, and
April’s mother Adele were killed in a murder-suicide situation. Elizabeth was determined to learn more, so
she speaks with Adele’s sister and neighbor to discover what would have driven
Adele to not only kill herself, but to take her 2 young children with her. Elizabeth discovers that Adele most likely
suffered from post-partum depression, which was not acknowledged as a diagnosis
at the time of April’s death. The
discovery of what happened to April leads Elizabeth on a self-reflective
journey as she realizes that a lot of what Adele, Adele’s mother, and her own
mother were feelings that Elizabeth herself had felt after her own 2 daughters
were born.
I really enjoyed the self-reflective journey Elizabeth took
during her research about what happened to April and Adele. Sometimes what helps me figure out what I
need the most is to focus on someone else.
I think this is what happened to Elizabeth. She was able to learn more about herself and
her family’s needs by discovering the truth about April and Adele. As I mentioned earlier, there were some
minor issues that I wasn’t a fan of.
Elizabeth is visited by an old lover during the book. I felt like this old lover wasn’t necessarily
pertinent to the story, but I could see was Kogan was trying to accomplish by
including him in the plot of the story.
I felt that Elizabeth had enough going on in her personal life that having
to deal with this lover was a bit excessive.
I was also a bit confused by the end of the story when Elizabeth reads a
letter written by April’s father. I wasn’t
sure how Shep Cassidy had gained access
to Elizabeth’s work (please note I am talking about the VERY end of the book,
not the initial contact from Shep). The one
last detail I was confused about (which considering I didn’t like the addition
of the lover anyways may not be important) is again at the end of the
book. Elizabeth and her family are on
vacation in Italy when they come across her old flame’s art. Elizabeth discovers what has happened to her
ex, but the book itself never says exactly what happened. I actually read that part of the book a
couple times to make sure I didn’t overlook something important. Readers figure out what happened based on
context clues, but it is a bit unclear what really happened, unless I still
overlooked it, in which case I am stupid J
Next on the reading list is Michael Crichton’s book
Timeline. John recommended this to me
(and even bought it for me). Considering
John isn’t a big reader, I have to assume this will be a good book. I will also
be reading a book for the book club I am pretty sure I am going to attend. The book they are reading is The Stupidest
Angel by Christopher Moore. I have no idea what this book is about, so I hope
to be in for a treat.
Let me know if there are any books you would love for me to
take on a test drive for you. I will
give anything a try!
Happy Reading!
~Tara
