Separated into different periods of years, The Memory Keeper's Daughter tells the tale of twins. One a boy, who was born perfect and kept by his parents, a doctor named David and his wife Norah, the other of their daughter, born with Down Syndrome and quickly rushed away by David to his nurse Caroline with instructions to take her to an institution and to never let his wife know of her survival (she was told the daughter had died.) Instead, Caroline moves herself and the daughter Phoebe far away to Pittsburgh and raises her as her own. The book continues through the lives of everyone and how this decision touched all of their lives.
None of the characters were particularly redeemable. In fact, they were all sort of whiny. All of them only dwelt in their own sorrow and never even tried to feel joy on their own. Its like they wanted to be depressed all the time. Caroline was about the only character I liked and that's because she picked herself up and made her life as happy as she could. A couple of the other side characters did so as well and that made me prefer them over the main characters. If there just could have been some happiness given I think it would have improved the read a lot.
As said before, this book was very melancholy. It was just so depressing to read and it made it very hard to get through the book. The idea was great and could have been very successful if there had been some joy thrown in. The writing was clear and precise with enough detail. But it was like sitting through a funeral without even the funny stories of the deceased to keep you smiling through your tears.
I wouldn't recommend it. It was just too utterly sad and a chore to read through because of that.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Copyright 2005
401 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment