A dual timeline historical fiction novel featuring female friendship and secrets, perfect for fans of the movie Mona Lisa Smile. This was my first book by Caroline Bishop and it was a pleasant surprise. Full of emotional depth and some good twists. I look forward to reading more of what she writes. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on grief, substance abuse, death in relation to driving under the influence, physical violence, bigotry, abortion, sexual assault, psychological distress, & others.

Florence Carter is well into her 80s when she meets Alice, an 18-year-old girl who is struggling immensely with mental distress & anxiety. As their friendship develops, Florence (Flo) comes to the realization that Alice is not unlike herself; having been confined to the decisions her family made for her & the social requirements imposed on her due to her social status. Together they attempt to work through some of Alice’s fears while simultaneously healing her relationship with her mother, Clara. This book explores the similarities found amongst generations of people (women) who were wrought with iron-clad inabilities & fears; resigned to maintain what had been dictated to them until an outlier character appeared & blew their confines out of the water.

One is left wondering how Bishop was able to maintain such distance from every single one of her characters whilst simultaneously attempting to entice the reader to delve further into their own empathy for the women’s situations. It is difficult to put my feelings & opinions into words with regard to this book because, on a surface level, this was a decent story. I think it’s important to reflect on the progress we have made as women in society; the freedoms we have in our possession, so to speak, that we had to go out of our way to obtain. Yet, in that same breath, the way this book approached women’s freedom & social advancement was so simplistic as to almost totally ignore the actual struggle experienced by every individual woman who tried for something different than what they were permitted to experience.

If you are wondering if there is diversity in this book, there is not. There is the inclusion of a tertiary character within the fictional book that Lilli has written who is gay but otherwise, the woman that she represents outside of that book is not shown or spoken of except to include that she lives happily with her wife. I cannot say for certain that the inclusion of any divergent narrative would have altered the plot of this book whatsoever given that Bishop explored the subject matter in such a superfluous manner, it might have been insulting to read about any other ethnicity of people, etc.—everyone else who is not included in the story shall we say—with the same approach.

However, that being said, I found myself wondering for whom this book was being written. This is a question that I ask myself when I come to realize that I would not have been recommended this book nor would I say that it is one which has succeeded in imprinting positively on my opinion. Therefore, I always seek to wonder who the ideal reader is, for, certainly there is one. I do not find it to be a negative aspect of reading when I come to the realization that a book was not written with me in mind; I am led to attempt to imagine which of my friends, family, or acquaintances would enjoy this read.

The reasons for which I include the lack of diversity & the general approach of the subject matter function in tandem to highlight that Bishop wrote about a very specific experience of a very specific group of people & that is not inherently wrong—everyone deserves to have themselves represented in literature & other mediums. However, can one say for certain that a woman such as Florence would confidently say that the author of this book explored the subject matter with the gusto that it merits? I think not.

I am not someone who is personally or professionally in a position to make remarks on the authentic representation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD). Therefore, my comments should be recognized as coming from someone who read through this book without personal or educational weight to back my impressions & opinions. With that being said, I found it absurdly shocking that Alice was treated with such a lack of empathy & support from everyone around her. What I find most complicated with this book & subsequently with this review, is that Bishop’s characters are in the midst of dealing with/living through horrible situations all of which are ignored to reinforce the belief that they simply need to step outside of their comfort zones.

Alice saw her friend killed by a drunk driver, no one is arguing that this would not cause a significant level of distress & turmoil in her life. However, her mother simply nods off to the fact that her child most certainly requires therapy because Alice said she didn’t want to go. I can appreciate that both Clara & Alice deal with some level of generalized anxiety & they are demonstrated to be incredibly negatively influential on each other.

Neither is allowed to grow or roam; neither is able to become the best version of themselves because they are absolutely held back by their fears & worry. Unfortunately, I lack sympathy for situations such as this & I acknowledge that wholeheartedly. I will be the first to say that it is often very difficult to be completely neutral in a critique due to being a person who is alive & present in this world; my experiences are carried with me in all aspects of my life.

Having to read chapters on end wherein Clara consciously chooses to hold Alice back from healing from the horror that she experienced because of her own anxieties drove me up a wall. I have an insatiably difficult time forgiving parents who pour all their difficulties onto the shoulders of their children. I could not fathom how often I had to see Clara distinctly choose to ignore every piece of advice she was ever given about being a parent, turning around & deciding to induce her child into levels of mental paralysis wherein she was unable to go outside for fear of terrible things happening to her. This is inexcusable behaviour.

What is truly difficult for me to grasp with regard to Clara was her purpose within the narrative. Did we need to have two people who were absolutely riddled with mental health issues & who both decided to pursue life untreated for things that they did not have to endure? Had Clara been cut from this book nothing else within the story would have been different, she brought nothing but negativity to Alice & the story as a whole. I did not care to read about someone harming their child’s mental state because she was too stupid to choose to be a better parent. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that you cannot protect someone from everything; every single parent on this planet knows that to be true, that is simply par for the course.

Yet during every single one of Clara’s points of view, we have to read about her knowing that what she is doing is harming her child & see her deliberately decide to do so anyway. Am I supposed to feel sympathy for a person causing harm to their child? It is not lost on me that the reason for Clara’s dialogue & presence within the book was to highlight the stages of life. I can appreciate that what Clara went through in terms of losing her job & having to, yet again, start over, was something that many people have experienced. Yet, once again, Bishop does a disservice in simply skimming over this facet. Did Clara enjoy publishing? Would she consider moving to London to attempt to work in the field again or was she done with that work completely? I didn’t know anything about Clara.

I didn’t know anything about any of the characters. There was no depth to anyone who presented their personal point of view within the chapters of this book, nor was there depth to any of the secondary or tertiary characters. Every single person in this book was a caricature of what they could be. I could not highlight any single character as being something of a person you might find in your real life. Had Bishop sought to place more detail & depth within the build of her characters we would have seen the line she attempted to sew throughout the generations, strengthen into the bridge that is built to aid people facing similar issues throughout the ages.

The redundancy within the dialogue absolutely obliterated the beauty of what could have been presented within this subject matter. No one character provided any insight into who they were nor did their inner thoughts glean any details about anything other than the minute moment we were privy to. Alice is 18 years old & all we read about is her detrimental levels of anxiety. She has a job at a coffee shop, she walks Ernie & has been writing journals for years—is there nothing else going on in her head other than thinking she’s going to be faced with her demise? Does she watch TV? Does she read books? Who is Alice?

This poor girl witnessed her friend be killed & is then placed in a chokehold by her parent because said person is unable to grasp the fact that you cannot protect people from others, ever so much as you might love them, we cannot control what is, literally, out of our hands. Alice never even gets the chance to be an individual person. She feels dread & despair towards herself because she was not like other girls her age—those who wanted to go party—-yet we never see this aspect explored with more depth. Alice could have been confronted with the fact that just because she wasn’t hanging around with the ‘right’ group of people—those who share her interests & passions—does not mean that there is something inherently wrong with her. We peruse the entire novel with her feelings of hatred towards herself & the only lesson she is given is to ‘live a little’. What does that even mean?

Alice enjoyed talking about books & she enjoyed a cozy time at home; there is nothing wrong with this. Both adults in her life, Clara & Florence, go out of their way to never ask Alice anything of substance. Florence took it upon herself to bring Alice to an Art School without ever asking her if this is what she might like to pursue. Why would you assume that the pass-time you saw someone do for two seconds would be what they should pursue educationally? What if Alice’s love for books & subsequent diary writing meant she loved to write? Why is no one talking to this person?

It was astounding how we made our way through an entire novel in which Lilli went about doing things that brought her pleasure, even if it meant going against the grain; Ella went out & enjoyed all the aspects of her youth that she loved; only to have Alice’s deteriorating mental state be ignored by the people who boast caring for her, yet never truly give her the time of day. Is the message not that one needs to take advantage of life, whatever that might mean for every person individually? Alice goes so far as to say that people often assume what might be best for her & she doesn’t feel inclined to be overtly extroverted, yet we ignore that so that Florence can feel happy that she ‘tried’ by asking Alice to go parasailing….It’s insulting.

Had this book been shorter I think that the method which Bishop adopted talking about the subject matter & the ways in which she introduced the characters would have been more interesting & suspenseful. I am not a fan of hinting at some mysterious aspect of the story only to have to wait until the final chapters for said aspect to be described in adequate detail. I lost any level of empathy I might have had for any of the characters having to read a riddle of the same intonations over & over again; the repetition drew tiring. For example, when Florence finally gets to sit with Lilli to tell her why she wasn’t able to meet with her that night I was waiting for something incredible to be revealed—we already knew she believed she killed Harry.

After everything we read, the revelations that were hinted at on a loop truly diluted the essence of the plot. Having such a story be over 400 pages was tiresome—boring if you are so inclined, as am I, to describe a story that went nowhere & boasted about being true to yourself while also pushing yourself to be extroverted like that one person you met for all of 5 mins of your lifespan.

This was not a book meant for me & I am aware of that while writing this review. I found some of the plot interesting & wanted to get to the point of the story with more swiftness than Bishop desired. I would have longed for the characters to not ignore mental distress to please that part of them that sought to live on the wild side. Lest we forget that being extremely outgoing & adventurous is not a trait that everyone posses nor should they feel inclined to adopt it; we should seek to enhance ourselves for who we are. I could not see how Florence & Alice based all of their decisions on a friendship that lasted such a short period of time. Can I appreciate that people leave a great impact on our lives even if we know them for short periods of time? Certainly. However, I wished for better for everyone in this book.

I would have truly found this story enjoyable had Bishop put forth the desire to see her characters become fully developed individuals & I would have loved this story if the moral had been thought out. So much of real life is ignored for the purpose of raising outlier characters as being in the ‘right’. For Florence to walk away from a life of financial stability because she did not want to marry Peter is not an easy decision to make & Lilli doesn’t seem to understand that the consequence of going against the grain can be deadly for people, as they still remain today. It would have been nice for one person in this book to have had a foot in reality; for them to include the sad truth of what they wanted to pursue. It is no simple feat to try & set out a life for yourself that is different from the one you have been set forth to live, especially if there are multiple people controlling the narrative. One need only look at Alice to understand that to be true.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada & Caroline Bishop for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!