Cara’s Reviews > People Like Her > Status Update

“I guess it's easy to distill an alcoholic down to their negative effects on the people who love them, but what Dr. Fairs doesn't see is what a fizzing ball of energy she is, how she can change the temperature of a room, how she draws people to her like toddlers to a tube of Smarties. She can be a complete and utter pain in the arse, but it's impossible to dislike my mother.”

“The irony, of course, is that in many ways, we're identical. Or at the very least, she's responsible for my defining characteristics. Dr. Fairs traces almost every personality trait of mine directly back to Ginny and her drinking. Trust issues? Tick. Obsessive avoidance of conflict and confrontation? Yep, that too. And a fear of abandonment and a need to control everything and everyone around me.”

“I guess the truth is that marriage really is about compromise. Which is not to say I always feel that we are compromising equally, or that we are meeting in the middle. Which is not to say that I always feel Emmy has necessarily fully thought through the impact that her life choices will make on the rest of us, the pressures they might place on us as a unit.”