Another Piece of My Heart
By Jane Green
St. Martin's Press March 2012
400 pages
ARC won from Macmillan and Goodreads
Andi has become a well-known fairy tale character: the evil
stepmother. But Andi isn’t evil; she is well-loved by her husband Ethan and her
stepdaughter Sophia. The only person who finds her evil is her teenage
stepdaughter Emily. Their tempestuous relationship threatens to drive Andi to
the edge and tear the family apart. When Andi discovers that Emily has a big
secret, will it save the fragile family or finally destroy them?
This novel got off to a bit of a rough start for me. It
seemed so endlessly clichéd – the rebellious teenage daughter, the father who
makes excuses for her, and worst of all the ridiculous gay neighbors. Ms. Green
quickly establishes the impasse at which Andi and Emily exist. Emily is rude
and nasty to her stepmother for no apparent reason, and Ethan tends to side
with his precious daughter which of course strains his marriage. The situation
is not helped by Ethan’s ex who has partial custody of the girls and is happy
to stick her nose into their relationship and disparage Andi. The problem for
me was that we lingered in this no man’s land for a little too long. Like Andi,
I was seriously considering leaving this relationship. .
Thankfully, the novel does move beyond this. The revelation
of Emily’s secret has major ramifications for the family and it has the potential
to heal or break them. It made a lot of difference for me when the narrative switched
from Andi to Emily. Once we saw things from both points of view, it made it
much more accessible for the reader.
While I was tempted early on to write this book off as
fluffy, as it progressed it wrestled with a lot of important issues. The stakes
become increasingly high and I sat down and finished the book in an afternoon. This
book is ultimately about what makes a family – who do you let in and who do you
let go? Is family defined by blood or by something deeper? While the story is
somewhat predictable, I did find myself thinking about the characters and the
issues with which they grapple after I finished reading.
If Jane Green is your girl and you have been waiting to get your hands on this book, fear not! Another Piece of My Heart
is released today, March 13! Pick it up at your book-selling establishment of choice.
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