From the Bookshelf of MCLS Reading Challenge…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought

Sep 13, 2018
Claire Talbot
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
as-the-page-turns,
books-i-still-think-about
Really enjoyed this book - much more than I envisioned that I would! The characters came alive for me - I felt like they were people I knew. I feel Patchett captured the messiness, yet tender moments that can be our life. She brought to life how one selfish act can have unforeseen consequences for everyone - children, spouses, parents. When Bert Cousins showed up at Franny Keating's christening party - uninvited and bearing a gift of gin, the Cousins and Keating families become a new, blended fa
...more

Commonwealth
Ann Patchett
ISBN: 978-0-06-249179-
"It was easy enough to see where things were going except that it wasn't so much about the miserable affair. It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they'd wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness."
PP 178-9
"It was more than twenty years ago and still the complete misery of that time was fully accessible to her."
P ...more
Ann Patchett
ISBN: 978-0-06-249179-
"It was easy enough to see where things were going except that it wasn't so much about the miserable affair. It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they'd wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness."
PP 178-9
"It was more than twenty years ago and still the complete misery of that time was fully accessible to her."
P ...more

I love Ann Patchett's books and this one is no exception. It was hard to keep track of the characters - 6 children and 4 main adults with divorce and remarraige, but it was worth it. How it all started and affected all the children as well as the adults. Good reading!
...more

"I love Ann Patchett's writing and storytelling, and this was one of my favorites, right up there with Bel Canto. This novel is a family saga spanning five decades about how a chance encounter at a christening party affects the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Filled with humor and heartbreak, and a dark secret, it is a novel that kept me riveted until the last page."
...more

Feb 26, 2017
Becky
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2017-reading-challenge,
book-club