Published by Penguin Press on 12 Sep 2017
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In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When the Richardsons’ friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family – and Mia’s.
This novel began as a slow, small town story. 100 pages in, I was surprised that there wasn’t more happening; I had heard so many people raving about this book, so I suppose I expected there to be a little more drama in such a sensational book.
I was looking for the moment the story would pick up. And I found it (the custody battle). And it built. And I cried. But it wasn’t the drama that got to me. It was the characters.
Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.
This book got to who we are as humans, as individuals, and it touched on themes of art, identity, motherhood, and love. It introduced characters as their roles in their community, like they were dolls to be moved to a script, a sort of storytelling from a distance. As the story carried on, each character and their relationships came to life and were unraveled so that we could see each person for who they were, what they believed in, what they loved, who they loved, how they loved. We could see the reasons for the choices they made and the consequences that led. The layers to each person make you question what matters, what matters more, what’s enough.
Similarly, for most of my life, I have always seen people for the roles they played in mine. It wasn’t until college that I started breaking out of that and noticing the people behind those roles -- my mom as her own person, my dad as his own person (my parents had lives before my own?? wow. mindblown), my brothers as their own people, a professor as their own person, a barista as their own person, a bus driver as their own person. Even for myself, I’ve been trying to figure out who I am apart from the role that I play -- no longer a student, so who?
Even if you don’t relate to this book in the specific way that I did, I believe that there’s something for everyone to take away from it. (For the record, I relate to this book in so many more ways, but this is one place to start.)
The young are the same, always and everywhere.
I know that I’ve come to this book later than most people. But I think this book came to me at exactly the right time. Lately I’ve been grappling with something in my heart that I won’t get into here, but I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that this book healed me in some ways.
But there would be love, too, so much love. With that, you could get by with so little.
A beautiful story that came to me at a perfect time. 5 stars, through and through.
