Even on their wedding day, John and Irene sensed that they were about to make a mistake. Years later, divorced, dating other people, and living in different parts of the country, they seem to have nothing in common - nothing except the most important person in each of their lives: Sadie, their spirited eighteen-year-old daughter. Feeling smothered by Irene and distanced from John, Sadie is growing more and more attached to her new boyfriend, Ron.
When tragedy strikes, Irene and John come together to support the daughter they love so dearly. What takes longer is to remember how they really feel about each other.
Elizabeth Berg has once again created characters who embody the many shades of the human spirit. Reading Berg’s fiction allows us to reflect on our deepest emotions, and her gifts as a writer make Once Upon a Time, There Was You a wonderful novel about the power of love, the unshakeable bonds of family, and the beauty of second chances.
"Berg delights in the eccentricities that shape complex personalities and excels in decoding the chemistry and paradoxes of relationships." - Booklist
The information about Once Upon a Time, There Was You shown above was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks.
In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication.
If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel
that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available,
please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.
Rated of 5
by
Louise J Great Read! John and Irene’s marriage only lasted eight short years. They divorced when their daughter, Sadie, was 8-years-old. Irene moved away making her the prime caregiver to Sadie and John visited when he could and had Sadie every August.
Their marriage and relationship was tenuous at best. In my opinion, it failed because of Irene. She is an odd character who is deeply lonely and neither she nor John had much in common other than their beloved Sadie.
When something terrible happens to Sadie, they come together and realize that in all these years they’ve never really figured each other out or even really knew how they felt about each other.
I loved the story but found Irene a very odd person, her own worst enemy at times. She wasn’t ever happy, thought differently and perceived things differently than most people, but isn’t that what makes each of us unique? Although the story involved John, Sadie, Irene and a few friends, I felt the story focused more on Irene than anyone. At times while reading I just felt like I wanted to yell at Irene: “Okay, okay just shut-up will ya!!! Geez!!” Her incessant chatter and what I call whining was weighing heavily on my nerves. I kept thinking “why?” are John and Sadie trying so hard with Irene, she “kept herself” miserable and couldn’t seem to pull herself out of this narcissistic, lonely, complaining place she was in. The story was well-written and any author who can evoke such involvement and emotion in me definitely gets my thumbs up!!
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 2, 1948, in a hospital that has
been torn down, which I'm pretty steamed about. When I was three years old, my
father reenlisted in the Army, and I spent my growing up years moving around a
lot—twice, I went to three schools in a single academic year. You can understand
my dilemma when people ask me where I'm from. My usual answer is "Um…..nowhere?"
I've loved books and reading from the time my mother began reading to me, and
I've loved writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I submitted my first poem
to American Girl magazine when I was nine years old. It was rejected, and it
took twenty-five years before I submitted anything again. Then, I entered a
contest in a...
The first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.
In the midst of the American Civil War, a southern plantation owner's wife is arrested by her husband and declared insane for interfering with his slaves. She is sent to an island mental asylum to...
Cellphone company Orange drops sponsorship of UK Women's Prize for Fiction(May 22 2012) Cellphone company Orange has announced that it will no longer be supporting the UK based Women's Prize for Fiction, which it has sponsored since the award was...
Full Story
of 5
by
Louise J
