3.0 out of 5 stars Maternal filicide....., September 8, 2008

This review is from: Between Here and April (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I thought this book was OK. I was hoping for more of a thriller given the premise that Elizabeth wants to solve the mystery of what happened to her friend April back when they were best friends in first grade. Not sure exactly how the memory "came" to her, but it was triggered and Elizabeth soon begins a very obsessive quest to get answers to a long buried story. In a very convoluted fashion, the story focuses first on April's parents and then on Elizabeth's marriage and her own mother. It seemed as if all of a sudden there were way too many parallels between the life of April's parents and Elizabeth's own stuggles. I also really don't like in books when the author inserts random quotes from literature and uses French without letting the reader in on the cleverness. Is it so hard to do the translation for the reader who might not be fluent in French? Pet peeve.
Anyway, Elizabeth really solves nothing as she has this in depth search for "her truth" and realizes that no one can see into the heart or know the mind of another. Yes, the topic of postpartum psychosis has gotten a lot of news lately, and definitely it does exist -- thank heavens it is out in the open now -- but it certainly does not lurk in every nursery corner. So the book ends without ever really telling us any answers other than Elizabeth's creative story at the end -- mailed to Shepherd (Adele's husband). Wrapped up way too neatly. The asides about the relationship between Elizabeth and her husband were unnecessary to the plot unless the author was telling us that women go crazy from bad or insensitive husbands who don't come home or help out or who beat them or whatever. Trite.
Again, the book was OK. A fast read. Not much of a mystery and not a thriller.