Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
I love Ann Patchett's stuff so I was psyched to get my hands on her latest book. Unfortunately, this isn't one of my favorites. It's with regret that I say, I'm not even sure what the point of it was.
I know her father was a cop in LA, so that explains why there's so much going on with the LAPD in the book. But it wasn't exactly interesting. And following two families being thrown together because a guy couldn't keep his hands off a beautiful married woman didn't captivate me. They came off as selfish people that I couldn't have sympathy for.
I suppose I should have had sympathy for the kids, but even that was hard to drum up. These were well-off, privileged people who acted like assholes. I was surprised that I wanted to keep reading, even though I didn't like anything that was going on. I think this was due to the suspense of not knowing what she was talking about sometimes, like how did the son Cal die? And it further surprised me that Patchett kept trying to use little moments to show profundity. There was nothing profound here--except maybe in the daughter that ended up at the Zen center in Switzerland? Basically, they were all jerks.
General consensus: Not for me but I'd love to hear if it was for you. I must have missed something.
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