From Goodreads:Josie Henderson loves the water and is fulfilled by her position as the only senio
r-level black scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. In building this impressive life for herself, she has tried to shed the one thing she cannot: her family back in landlocked Cleveland. Her adored brother, Tick, was her childhood ally as they watched their drinking father push away all the love that his wife and children were trying to give him. Now Tick himself has been coming apart and demands to be heard.
Weaving four voices into a beautiful tapestry, Southgate charts the lives of the Hendersons from the parents’ first charmed meeting to Josie’s realization that the ways of the human heart are more complex than anything seen under a microscope
My Review: I admit that I picked up this book because it has Cleveland Ohio as a setting. I live near there so I was curious how the author would describe it and incorporate it into the story.
The city is like a character in the story. The author describes it spot on. The two main themes of this book is alcoholism and adultery.
The plot is authentic and believable. The characters draw you in and while they are messing up their lives you still root for them because you want everything to turn out OK. While I like happy endings as much as the next person, I also like authentic endings. In real life a sistuation does not always lead to a perfect resolved ending. This is the case for this book. It ends like such a situation would happen in real life.
The writing itself was beautiful. The rich detailed settings makes you feel as if you are really there. You can almost smell the ocean and see the streets of Cleveland while reading this book.
