Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for gifting me a digital ARC of the debut novel by Rebecca Fallon. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4 stars!
It’s 1997, and two 7-year-olds watch as their mother's body is tipped overboard in a Viking funeral. A confusing and apt send off for soap opera star Susan Bliss. We go back in time 15 years, to when Susan meets Alcott, and her double life begins. She struggles with the transition to New England wife and mother and the glitzy lights of LA. In the present, Susan's twins still struggle with the loss of their mother in different ways.
This is a sharp, beautifully written debut that intertwines timelines to explore and magnify the different forms of ourselves that we share with others and keep private. I felt for Susan, even while I didn't condone her decisions, because she was raised in a time where women were supposed to be able to have it all. But can we? What gets sacrificed in the mix? Al was harder for me to understand, because he kept Susan's other world away from the twins, even as they were adults, so that they weren't able to properly process their loss or the true nature of their mother. I'm looking forward to more from this author.
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