My rating: 3/5
Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Women's lit, family fiction, historical romance
Estranged from her mother since she ran away from her rural Irish home as a young woman, Kate swore a future oath that she’d always be a friend to her daughter, Sabine. But history has a way of repeating itself, and Kate now faces an ever-widening chasm between herself and her daughter. With Sabine about to make her own journey to Ireland to see the grandmother Kate abandoned, Kate is left wondering how they ever made it here, and what she can do to close the gap between them.
For Joy, seeing her granddaughter is a dream come true. After the painful separation from Kate, she’s looking forward to having time with Sabine. Yet almost as soon as the young woman arrives, the lack of common ground between them deflates her enthusiasm. And when Sabine’s impetuous, inquisitive nature forces Joy to face long-buried secrets from her past, she realizes that perhaps it’s time to finally heal old wounds.
So this is the final book I've chosen for this year based on TBNT Book Challenge. I have decided not to attempt the bonus round, Read a book that is more than 500 pages with a female protagonist, as I felt it is a little too stressful for me LOL!
Sheltering Rain is apparently Jojo Moyes' first book. I realised that it pales in comparison to Me Before You. Maybe it was her first or maybe it was the genre, at times family drama is just not my thing. The pace was really slow and there were just too many lengthy fillers that I've finally speed read to the end.
This book is about 3 generation of women who happened to harbour secrets of their own and they don't seemed eye to eye at all, somehow of a killjoy. Grandma Joy had a whirlwind romance, got engaged after meeting for one day and eventually married Edward. Mom Kate, on the other hand, had a daughter on her own in England and never got married but had a string of boyfriends. Daughter Sabine was brought up to be independent and lived her life freely. After Sabine was sent to visit her grandma in Ireland, things very slowly changed with long kept secrets slowly being revealed. When Edward's health deteriorated, Kate has to return home and everything turned for the worst when all 3 women were in the same house before it slowly became better.
After ploughing through, thankfully I've enjoyed the ending when all the bubbles started bursting. There were many lows but those few highs were definitely the highlight for me like when Joy had to endure Duke's death... that was such a harrowing moment for me, had me in tears and luckily I was at home reading. There were some melancholy moments but Kate's insecurity was such a dread for me, though she finally realised she is still in love with Thom. Sabine's entitled attitude got everything wrong about her mother that added salt to the wound but eventually everything panned out right.
Some notable quotes:
"But not for long. If you stay here in that thing," he pointed dismissively at her jacket, warm enough for the worst that London could throw at it, "you'll catch pneumonia. C'mon, it's sheltering rain."
"I can't believe this...," she said, almost to herself. "I can't believe Daddy... I thought you were perfect," she said. "I really thought the two of you had this perfect love."
No comments:
Post a Comment