It took a little while to get into the flow of the story, not through any fault of the writer but because I read it in galley form (via NetGalley) on my nook and it took me several pages to realize that the POV was switching between characters from paragraph to paragraph. Once I became familiar with all the characters, I began to enjoy it much more.

Put simply, The Red House is the story of two families on vacation in the country for a week. Richard and Angela are brother and sister with little in common - they even have different memories of their parents in childhood. Richard brings his second wife, Louisa, and her popular and angry daughter, Melissa. Angela brings her husband Dominic and her children, Alex, Daisy, and Benjy; she also brings along the ghost of Karen, the baby she miscarried nearly 18 years before. "Everyone in their own little worlds," and during this week those worlds brush up against each other, bounce off, return, see each other from different angles.

Haddon again displays his great facility for writing about families from the perspective of each person in them; he has great empathy for his characters. I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it. Read an interview with the author here: http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/s...

p. 32 How do you remember this stuff? But why had she forgotten? That was the real question.

p. 44 How strange this yearning for being elsewhere doing nothing...What every child knows and every adult forgets, the glacial movement of the watched clock...

p. 108 Every mind at the center of space and time. The fierce little star of now.

p. 168 This lostness? Do other people feel this? Do other people live with this?

p. 171 Everyone in their little worlds.

p. 183 How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again...She stared through the window trying to discern a future that wasn't clear yet.