| Grief, Greed, Love, and Lust |
February 8, 2010
Liza Palmer's A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents takes heavy topics -- death, abandonment, deceit, greed -- and turns them into palatable and satisfying fare for a weekend read. The book could be called grief-lit-lite but I liked it, I really liked it. Palmer didn't show me the world in a whole new way or introduce me to characters that I will remember always. And yet she achieved what is not easy, she wrote a book that hooked me from page one and carried me through to the end with fast-paced and enjoyable action. My enjoyment was further increased by Palmer's portrayal of a hardy heroine, a luscious love object, a charming crew of supporting characters, and villains so easy and fun to detest that I loved loathing them!
Palmer is deft and agile with her writing. She paces the story of how Grace Hawkes is brought back into the fold of the family she walked away from and back into the open arms of the lover she abandoned, along an uncluttered continuum of action and flashbacks. The experience of sorrow is explored but in a way that is comforting and hopeful. There is no despair in this novel, just a temporary shutting down of emotion -- a black-out, if you will -- and Grace's shut-down heart is pumped back into working order through the right doses of tragedy, lust, and effective estate planning.
With appealing characters so easy to love, villains so easy to hate, true love to root for, and family love to depend on, A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents is gratifying and entertaining, and a good read.
Per FTC rules, the book reviewed here was supplied by the publisher.
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