AUTHOR: Jami Attenberg
STARTED: August 17, 2016
FINISHED: September 1, 2016
PAGES: 274
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: How could she not feed their daughter?
SUMMARY: [From BN] For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's enormous girth. She's obsessed with food—thinking about it, eating it—and if she doesn't stop, she won't have much longer to live. When Richard abandons his wife, it is up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easy-going, pot-smoking family man, just wants to smooth things over. And Rachelle— a whippet thin perfectionist— is intent on saving her mother-in-law's life, but this task proves even bigger than planning her twin children's spectacular b'nai mitzvah party. Through it all, they wonder: do Edie's devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?
THOUGHTS: This was the kind of book that was fantastic while I was reading it, but I could shrug it off every time I closed the cover for the night. It's well written, has a great story, and offers an intriguing perspective, but it doesn't stick with you. This is a book about characters and how those characters interact with one another. Every person is this book is fully fleshed out - but nothing about them lingers.
I liked reading this story, but it's not a book I'll go back to or recommend to friends.
RATING: 6/10 [Good]
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