Other than Daniel, is there a character you sympathized with, or one you disliked?

Other than Daniel, is there a character you sympathized with, or one you disliked? Why?

I sympathized with Niall. The author does a good job showing how Phoebe's passing affects him. I disliked Timou because of his failure to see any faults in himself that could have led to Claudette's disappearance.

I second Crofly's thoughts and agree that the most aggrieved person is perhaps Niall. He is truly alone...

I agree. I sympathized with Niall & disliked Timou. I struggled with liking & being sympathetic toward Daniel due to disagreeing with a significant amount of the choices he made.
I felt sad for most of the characters for most of the book.

Yes, I really appreciated Claudette from the beginning to the end. I sympathized, too, because she was such a maverick and did everything with passion, therefore often made enemies instead of friends.

Although I also agree with the previous statements, I felt that Claudette had a difficult challenge with her quest for a good life; not just for herself, but her children and Niall. And the other vile character would be Todd. His role in Nicola's tragedy is unforgivable.

Amen to your statement, Tired Bookreader. Couldn't have said it better!

Niall definitely had a difficult life. Of all the characters I think he grew the most. I didn't like Timou, but I guess it was important not to like him to understand why Claudette disappeared.

I liked Ari and Niall. They both had physical challenges that they worked hard to overcome. And they both loved Daniel and did their best to support and help him. I liked Claudette most of the time, although I thought she was sometimes unreasonable. I didn't much care for Pascaline, Timou, or Todd.

I agree with PiperUp, I never did sympathize with Daniel. I really became frustrated with his self-loathing and wallowing. Aside from Phoebe's death, the trauma in his life was within his control. I did not understand the blind loyalty of Todd - but perhaps this was in the development of the characters. I never really felt I was able to have more than a surface sense of who the characters were. It seemed that the desire was to establish Claudette as crazy, but to me she was simply eccentric - and also, to me, the most identifiable of the characters. Ari and Niall were interesting characters that I would have liked to know more about, and Phoebe seemed to be a ploy in the plot to give Daniel a crisis. Tiimu was just obnoxious. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the writing was excellent, but I felt that there could have been more development of an existing characters, rather than introducing new voices in Todd and the dipslomat's ex-wife.

I liked Claudette the best because she was such a survivor. I liked Timou the least because he was so self absorbed.

is also a I loved Ari, his gentleness and frustration with his stuttering, his love for his mother and Daniel, his machinations to get them back together again. What a great, well rounded character. Niall great character, his eczema could be his cutch but he does not let it

Truthfully, Daniel was the character for whom I felt the least sympathy. To me, the man is a whiner and I have zero patience for that behavior/attitude. The person with whom I was most intertwined was Claudette. She was interesting, engaging and provocative - and was far more real to me than any other character in the story!

To me, feeling sympathetic to a character doesn't depend upon that person being faultless or only responding to challenges in ways that I would. What matters to me more is what the character's motivations are, for good or poor decisions. (Unlike people we know, where we can't always know their motivations and have to go by their behavior.) I did find Daniel sympathetic, even though he made serious mistakes, because he came across as a kind person struggling to be a better father to his children than his own father had been to him, and struggling to face up to things he had denied and buried. He showed great empathy in small ways, such as when he first met Ari, or when he got angry at all the posters of flawless skin in the dermatology clinic, that he saw as a mockery of the agony children like Niall had to cope with.

I found all of the children sympathetic, and definitely Claudette too.I felt the author did a fine job with her and with Daniel, in showing them as complex, with some outstanding negative traits that are forgivable, since we can see where they are coming from, but in equal or greater measure, good qualities too.

Like everyone else here it seems, I despised Timou and Todd.

I liked all of the children in this book. Niall's character had so much to deal with mentally and physically. Ari also had a problem with stuttering and not having his dad in his life.

I especially felt sympathetic toward Ari. He is portrayed as a very creative boy wrestling with communication issues, but he was given the freedom to explore his interests by his eccentric mother's reclusive lifestyle. Daniel was able to be a father figure that seems to have served Ari's emotional needs better than his biological father ever could.

Throughout the story, I tried to find redemption in any of the adult characters. It's not that I disliked them, I just felt no connection. The choices that the adults made were strictly self serving. Claudette proved to be a nurturing parent and unconventional in her parenting method. This was fun for the children, as children, however as they grew that lifestyle became harder to justify.

I liked most of the characters in the book.. Sympathized with Daniel and Claudette, but not nearly as much as all of their children who were caught up in the eccentricities of their parents. Timou was the least likeable to me because of his ego. I felt that he coerced Claudette into acting when she wasn't really comfortable with that role at all. I felt bad for Ari that his father never chose to have a relationship with him, but this is one of the things that made me like Daniel.. That even though he was fairly self absorbed and lived in a constant depressive state, he still loved his children , and I felt was a good father through it all. He did completely lose himself when Phoebe was killed, and I felt that was pretty realistic . I can't imagine that kind of loss. Claudette was a great mom.. And even to Niall who was not her biological son.

I did not care for Timou, he was very into himself, with no regard for anyone else. He certainly did not know much about Claudette. While I liked Daniel, I thought he brought many of his problems on himself. He felt he was at fault about many things. I like Ari and Niall. I did feel sorry for the children, Daniel was not there for his older ones. The younger ones were kept from the outside world. Claudette and Daniel were good together and Daniel let that get away. I enjoyed reading about the characters in this book

Many people seemed not to care for Timou. While I certainly didn't love him, I sort of was neutral for Timou. I had much more negative feelings for Todd, and I must admit, I was not a fan of Claudette's parents - especially her mother. While I liked both Ari and Niall, I think I found Ari more interesting, and would have liked a little more on him. I had a hard time with Daniel. Clearly he was supposed to be flawed, and I did have a hard time sympathizing with him on many occasions, but I thought his interactions with Ari were his best moments. I also identified with Claudette. I liked the term 'eccentric' that was used to describe her, and I think it's the eccentric people that make good reading