It is a stellar. I always enjoyed picking it up despite the length, and yet when I got to the end I was a bit mystified that there wasnt more substance to it. In addition to more likable characters this could have used a good edit. This did not need to be 530 pages long, but man it was. And, of course, the two who started it all have their own issues to deal with: getting older, watching their daughters change, and taking in a grandson to raise after they thought their childrearing days were done. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. She was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. The two begin a songwriting partnership that grows into something more once Sydney dumps Hunter and decides to crash with Ridge and his two roommates while she gets back on her feet. Perhaps the main message here is something like, love is messy, or theres more to every relationship than meets the eye, but theres nothing groundbreaking or life-altering to be gleaned from such platitudes. But while I thought a lot of those details were just characterization tactics and a critique of wealthy white suburbia, it is definitely understandable that they would be unpleasant to read anyway. Some of those remarks are challenged a bit on the page, like the daughter who says her mom is in schizoid mode is berated for it right after by other characters present. Fortunately, I had a good time reading it, though I cant say it had much else going for it. The usage of the word "retard" was questionable and I don't know how it was made through the rounds of editing. Why do we have someone watching a couple have sex/make out so often? 1 views, 0 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Scooter: Haunted Explorations - Overnight Challenge - Exploring With Josh!! Be the first to contribute! This Study Guide consists of approximately 52pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - It is such a shockingly tender and uncannily knowing novel about the reality of long term love and affection, and the sweetness and claustrophobia of relationships between sisters. #haunted #haunting #ghost #mystery #strange. help you understand the book. The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. Categories: save. share. I do think there is something interesting about people who have loads of resources but do the sneaky thing out of fear instead of real hardship. It does seem like a rather safe and repetitive set, as a whole. I wouldve loved to see a bit more variety in content this year and a few less books about motherhood! Based on Claire Lombardo's 2019 novel of the same name, "The Most Fun We Ever Had" follows four sisters, each struggling to exist in the shadow of their parents' idyllic marriage, whose. Violet also has a big secret that no one supposedly knows about. But she secretly got along much better with Chris thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. . Overarching it all is the unusually ardent connection between Marilyn and David Sorenson. Art & Auctions Print Edition Books & Arts Books Bookshelf 'The Most Fun We Ever Had' Review: An Assured Debut Claire Lombardo's first novel gives a sympathetic but unsentimental look at. This definitely read like a telenovela in book form for me. Diving into a 550-page novel as opposed to, say, a 300-page novel is the difference between a dalliance and a full-blown commitment. Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. I didnt notice one singular theme as strongly last year, though perhaps giving voice to silenced or misrepresented women was perhaps the strongest commonality? Not all of them but Wendy, Violet, and Lisa in particular. She also decided that his biological family should be the ones to provide that. It's the most fun way to kick your vacation into high gear. You will never not be entertained. In Claire Lombardo's debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, she isn't afraid to tackle the biggest of topics, specifically for womensisterhood, fear, general annoyance and birth or the absence of it.The reader gets an intimate look at the conception of the Sorenson family (literally, considering Lombardo's plethora of sex scenes), giving narrative control to each member: Marilyn and . I always find those relationships so interesting to read about, which was definitely the highlight of this book for me. I could not understand why she wasnt viewing this chance as an opportunity. The parentsMarilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctorstrike their offspring as impossibly happy. It also leads to Lombardo's heartwarming takeaway: "If this family had taught him anything it was that people could get mad at each other and then make up again. The novel is absolutely a pleasant and enjoyable read, but is in no way gritty.. Ahhhh, I see. She sets the plot in motion by springing a terrible surprise on Violet, whose perfect life is just too much for her to swallow after she suffers a series of unhappy blows. This Study Guide consists of approximately 52 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Most Fun We Ever Had. Ive been kind of curious about this one. Another dysfunctional family book , 500 pages long, 4 daughters who are mostly annoying and unbearable, bring it on, this is one of the most challenging experience for me! But she became comfortable with her body in adulthood after her husband, after her abbreviated pregnancy in a way that surprised her.. For me, they were a bunch of pretentious rich people with little love for each other (again the kids). LITERARY FICTION | Sometimes we dont get to know about a characters childhood or sometimes we dont get to know about a secondary characters thoughts or emotions. When she receives her final rejection letter, she lies about her acceptance. Wendy and Violet mend old wounds stemming from Wendys losses, both of her husband and her stillborn daughter. Back to reviews with another Womens Prize longlist title! Jonah is the character that I was backing and rooting for. Great review! Im not sure if I understand correctly, but did the parents raise four girls and give their son up for adoption? If youre looking for fascinating character dynamics and the questionable choices of wealthy folk rather than a lit prize masterpiece, I think this could be a decent read. Things get even weirder as classes are unlocked and they stop fitting into nice easy boxes.The best part is finding synergy! Her boys adore him but she continues to be wary. Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. by Claire Lombardo. I mean, having caring parents and a stable household doesnt necessarily guarantee a happy childhood and eventually happy adulthood, but it seemed there should be a better way to go about making that point than blaming the people whove had good luck and put hard work into their relationships. Thanks! Claire Lombardo A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built. Unless the takeaway is that we shouldnt present our children with the model of a solid marriage for fear of setting the bar too high, theres little substance to take back to the real world after closing the back cover. Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet by The only thing that the daughters have over their parents is sisterhood. Jonah lives with Wendy and then moves to his grandparents house, but never lives with Violet and her family. I hope youll have a good time with it if/when you pick it up! Magazine Subscribers (How to Find Your Reader Number), Mantel, Woodson on Womens Prize Longlist. She was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, and spent several years doing social work in Chicago. Jonah calls Wendy from Montana and she retrieves him. just keep the good things of the last league, and improve some things, with a good league mechanic, would have been enough to be as good or better than the last league. We had lots of flashbacks and secrets that didn't get revealed till later on in the plot but the flashbacks were just too many to my liking. influencers in the know since 1933. I think it lacks some of the commentary and insight that you mentioned Such a Fun Age doing well, for example, which was why this one didnt quite work for me. A full book review of "The Most Fun We Ever Had" by Claire Lambardo. Doubleday, 2019. Even family interactions elicit a mix of exasperation and comfort. Im definitely looking forward to wrap-ups and predictions as well. Get The Most Fun We Ever Had from Amazon.com. And I have to agree on sister relationships seeming very different than brother-sister ones; I dont have the strongest of sibling bonds, but even in childhood when my brothers and I got along better it was NOTHING like sisterhood is generally portrayed. October 15, 2019 11:00am. Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men . Still getting used to this book reviewing deal. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. KimD66 | Nov 29, 2022 |. In painting this luminous portrait of a familys becoming, Lombardo joins the ranks of writers such as Celeste Ng, Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Franzen as visionary chroniclers of our modern lives. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Engrossing and fun but surprisingly shallow seems like a succinct way to say it. The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo The length is a stopper: 532 pages. Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019. Title: The Most Fun We Ever Had Author: Claire Lombardo Genre: Fiction Publishing Date: June 25th, 2019 Pages: 532 Rating (5.0 Scale): 5.0 Synopsis (from cover): When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. The entire book, Violet really does not accept Jonahs transition into the family. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast . (The year 1996, an annus horribilis in the Sorensons' marriage following an office flirtation, seems particularly endless, as David notes.). She has not lived enough life to have made any mistakes or have any defining characteristics. Ive been continually surprised by how often motherhood comes up as a focus even in the longlisted novels I wasnt expecting to lean that way! Too long for the lack of plot and underwhelming and boring characters. From here, the narration jumps ahead sixteen years to follow a years worth of family drama, divided into seasonal sections. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. As the work closes, David and Marilyn find contentment and comfort in one another as they marvel at the brood they have created, out of their extraordinary and enduring love. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Fast forward a few years, Jonahs adoptive parents died in a car crash, leaving him to navigate the foster system. [ Claire Lombardo describes how she arrived at the Iowa Writers Workshop with a very messy, 813-page draft. ]. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. At a family wedding, the four Sorenson sisters polka-dot the green lawn in their summer pastels, with varying shades of hair and varying degrees of unease. This thread is archived. There is something funny, notable or awe-inspiring on every single page' Jenny Colgan, Spectator A joyful celebration of books - the perfect gift for bibliophiles, word lovers and anyone who's ever wondered, should you judge a book by its cover? Sure, David and Marilyn might have had four daughters several people for whom things can go wrong but need all of them be plagued by multiple unresolved demons? Sorry, Ive been struggling with explanations lately I guess! Dang it. Lets start with Wendy, the eldest daughter. Amy Adams, Laura Dern to Produce 'The Most Fun We Ever Had' Adaptation at HBO By Joe Otterson Doubleday/Claire Lombardo HBO is developing a series adaptation of the Claire Lombardo novel "The. There is no reason that it took that much to tell the story of this upper-middle class suburban family. There were so many great contenders on the longlist last year that I wouldve loved to see win above An American Marriage, even though AAM was a 4-star read for me. Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. And yes, the book is annoyingly long! "The Most Fun We Ever Had" is an ambitious and brilliantly written first novel, sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking, but its unrelenting nature and lack of context is ultimately. I was cautiously optimistic about this years list at first since so many of the titles surprised me- I was hoping that Id find some hidden depths to these titles that I hadnt been expecting, but unfortunately its not turning out that way. The title really makes little sense and is only a bland reference to one scene that comes late in the book. They crept into my heart; it was like being a member of their family. I love listening to family dramas but this one had too much needless drama to my taste. Author Claire Lombardo writes every sentence with precision. She finds great comfort and solace in her husband, to whom she is inextricably bonded. (Perhaps!) When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) I appreciated your probing more into the themes of the novel and how they didnt seem to illuminate anything beyond the specific situation of this family. Hoover is a master at writing scenes from dual perspectives. We already have a strong community, but this event brought us even closer as we cheered and grinded it out next to each other! Thats where I thought Lombardos writing shone in this book- the characters arent always sympathetic but they do feel like complex, well-thought-out people and it was so interesting to see how their lives and decisions would intersect. At the age of 20, Wendy marries Miles, a man 15 years her senior who comes from old money, to escape her family and her eating disorder. this imperfect story realistically captures the essence of the imperfect complexities of marriage, parenthood, sisterly bonds, and familial ties. Retrieve credentials. Jonahs not much younger than Grace, the baby of the family, who is hiding out in Portland, living a lie about her law-school status and worried that she is a giant disappointment to the parents she reveres. Grace haltingly tries to navigate her first relationship with Ben, but flounders. ), with a link to a digital soundtrack by American Idol contestant Griffin Peterson. Marilyn and David Sorenson are two such people, and their four daughters Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace are simultaneously spellbound by them and over it. After a while, you feel that you've always lived with the Sorenson family, and always will. Which also happened to qualify as "sidequests" for that goal, Which triggered the personal quest "Have two team mates retire", And it was our 15th total scenariowhich triggered that personal quest. At 544 pages, you get to know them, along with their struggles and joys, pretty well. In comparison, there is one daughter who survives paycheck to paycheck in a sad apartment with one fork to her name. THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD By Claire Lombardo The big family secret is revealed almost immediately in Claire Lombardo's engrossing debut novel, "The Most Fun We Ever Had," which. Hoover is one of the freshest voices in new-adult fiction, and her latest resonates with true emotion, unforgettable by Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Courtesy of HBO. But its the uptight second child, Violet, who is the source of the big family scandal: Her son, born without her parents knowledge, was given up for adoption and rediscovered 15 years later thanks to the pointed meddling of the eldest sister, Wendy, a dissolute young widow who resents Violets inability to appreciate her own luck. In the process, players will enhance their abilities with experience and loot, discover new locations to explore and plunder, and expand an ever-branching story fueled by the decisions they make. A room without books is like a body without a soul., [This review contains spoilers heads up!]. By At its core, The Most Fun We Ever Had isn't much more than an entertaining drama about four sisters and their futile competition to prove themselves most worthy of their picture-perfect parents- and each other. Jonah acclimates to living with David and Marilyn, but he witnesses Liza kissing another man and inadvertently discloses this information to Ryan. Independent Maggie never complains about Ridges friendship with Sydney, and it's hard to even want Ridge to leave Maggie when she reveals her devastating secret. It is an important topic to be sure, but books like this just dont seem to be bringing anything new to the table, sadly. The author hinted that the child's mother had sex with someone another sister would find upsetting. The Most Fun We Ever Had is a well-structured story that shares the characters' backstory adroitly, never all at once, but in reveals that feel well-timed, well-placed. Its page count allows Lombardo to examine- in excruciating detail- the minutiae of day-to-day interactions, a lifetime of decisions and assumptions, and each sibling and parent relationship that is one thread in the greater web of this family. DNF 55%. But flashbacks to exhausted, fraught times make clear that the Sorensons' relationship hasn't been as smooth as it appears. Instead, I found this story engrossing and fun, but surprisingly shallow. It looks like the judges were just very interested in books about parenthood this year for some reason! More Books by Claire Lombardo Der grte Spa, den wir je hatten. Theres four of you? he asked. She wonders how her daughters could have all turned out so markedly different, not only from one another but also from her. because there are loads of those people out there, even if theyre only saying horrible things to someone in a close circle and not in public. Their personalities are shitty. Wendy has asked to meet Violet for lunch but much to Violets shock and horror, Wendy is sitting at a table with Violets adopted son whom she gave up at birth. This was a delightful debut and I cant wait to see what the author writes next. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Violet is the character I wanted to slap. Trust me. . Gingko leaves and trees show up many times during the course of the novelduring the opening scene and when David and Marilyn first fall in love, just to name a couple. Make harvest craft easy to trade. 'The Most Fun We Ever Had" is an ambitious and brilliantly written first novel, sometimes amusing and sometimes shocking, but its unrelenting nature and lack of context is ultimately off-putting.. In Part Two, Summer, Jonah moves in with Wendy to find that she is grieving the loss of her husband, and copes with alcohol and promiscuity. HBO has put in development The Most Fun We Ever Had, a drama-series project based on Claire Lombardo 's New York Times bestselling novel, from Amy . When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. Ryan leaves Liza. ", Wendy is a terrific character: caustic, tough, difficult, flawed, self-destructive, bitingly funny and ultimately sympathetic. This surprise, about which I'll only say that it introduces another convincingly complex character, brings out the best and worst in various family members and leads to the most moving scenes. Though it doesnt seem like much fun theyre considerate and selfish in equal measure, they do things for one another without mentioning it and then stab one another in the back its theirs. (LogOut/ CLAIRE LOMBARDO earned her MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Books by Claire Lombardo A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple--still madly in love after forty years--recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they've built.When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. Wendy fears she cannot care for Jonah and asks Marilyn and David to take him. The Most Fun We Ever Had: A Novel Hardcover - June 25, 2019 by Claire Lombardo (Author) 6,526 ratings Editors' pick Best Literature & Fiction See all formats and editions Kindle $12.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover $31.66 135 Used from $1.64 2 New from $31.60 13 Collectible from $8.01 Paperback I made a little list in my longlist wrap-up last year of parallels that I found between the books- Ill link that here in case youre curious! Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. Sadly the shortlist seemed a bit uninspired compared to the longlist, so Im very curious to see which books will make the cut this year- hopefully not the disappointing ones! The Most Fun We Ever Had is a brilliant, if meandering, portrayal of family ties, with a sharp eye for dialogue and an acute understanding of familial and sibling relationships. I had a good time with this book, I really did. The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo: 9780525564232 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER "A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory." Madeline Miller, bestselling. This sounds exactly like the kind of book Ill enjoy, even if it was fine but not perfect for you. That's awesome! I had this in a queue at my library but I may press on with others I want to read first! Thematically, alongside the complexities of parent and sibling relationships, this story looks at wealth and privilege from a number of angles. More points for Lombardo. lot of improvement of the loot were (and for lot, are still) possible. Perhaps someone with stronger sibling ties might get more out of this one than I did, or find more to identify with at least. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents early lean times with chapters about their daughters wobbly forays into adulthood. Residents Demand Answers at Council Meeting on Police Killing of Sayed Faisal, Bob Odenkirk Named Hasty Pudding Man of the Year, Harvard Kennedy School Dean Reverses Course, Will Name Ken Roth Fellow, Ex-Provost, Harvard Corporation Member Will Investigate Stanford Presidents Scientific Misconduct Allegations, Harvard Medical School Drops Out of U.S. News Rankings. When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life. Please enjoy my thoughts and ideas below. Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. I feel like even though the book claims each sister is in a state of unrest, Graces struggle is somehow not quite as severe as the others. I love a good family saga, so I've been meaning to read this since the spring. I dont like to think that the author is being ignorant, but there are other books Ive read where I seriously just wasnt sure. 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Why do We have someone watching a couple have sex/make out so markedly different not...