This was a delightful debut and I cant wait to see what the author writes next. Violet is the daughter that did everything right. She went to college, became a lawyer, married a nice man and has two young children. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Design a site like this with WordPress.com. The story is divided into two storylines. Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We Ever Had probably won't be the most fun you'll ever have (I hope not, for your sake), but it's a wonderfully immersive read that packs more heart and heft than most first novels. I just noticed how long this book is. Into this family arrives Jonah, the son Violet had given birth to and then had adopted, whose presence is much needed by the family as can be seen in the impact he has. Its not a bad book by any means, but its a straightforward story that neglects to go the extra mile. All the characters, with vastly differing perspectives, are written with clarity. 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. ISBN-13: 9780385544252. But despite the thorough setup, the books commentary barely dips below the surface of the expected. Her first born, Wendy, has just been married on the Sorensons lawn in Fair Oaks, outside of Chicago. At this point you may be thinking that theres no way four women can spend an entire book being obsessed with their happily married parents and that perhaps I just have some sort of older suburban couple kink. This did not need to be 530 pages long, but man it was. Despite their wealth, there is a plethora of more relatable issues: accidental pregnancies, eating disorders, cheating, stagnant communication the list could go on. He stumbles on his grandparents flirting in the kitchen and pauses to examine these people who consciously chose to talk about weeds with their crotches touching. A very accurate description of enviable long-term commitment. Another plot line: one daughter gives a child up for adoption and that child re-enters the family's life. Sorry, Ive been struggling with explanations lately I guess! I think there are actually some similarities to Fleishman in this book, especially with characterization and marriage commentary, so Im not sure youd enjoy this one much! Her boys adore him but she continues to be wary. ", Another narrative throughline is the intense competition between the two older Sorenson daughters: Wendy, an "impulsive, compulsive, turbulent" child, and Violet, the sister who encroached on her infancy by being born in the same calendar year. It is an important topic to be sure, but books like this just dont seem to be bringing anything new to the table, sadly. Lombardos prose drives the plot and her sentences, though tightly raveled, reveal much more about the characters than is immediately apparent. '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.. Lombardo captures this often toxic sibling dynamic with the perfect image: "A seesaw, this sisterhood, and Wendy was the jerk who jumped off early so the other person toppled into the sand. Bibliographic information. Lombardo shows how menial things can be misinterpreted resulting in decades of bad blood. Things seem to snowball out of control, and perhaps for a reader it seems like a bit much, but Lombardos inclusion of all the minutiae are also true to life: This is how life actually is. From the outside, the parents marriage seems flawless. But let's not lose sight of Lombardo's considerable achievement. The author hinted that the child's mother had sex with someone another sister would find upsetting. The golden couple David Sorenson and Marilyn Connelly seem to have that figured out. Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet by Thematically, alongside the complexities of parent and sibling relationships, this story looks at wealth and privilege from a number of angles. Now youve got me thinking about it, and its something I want to keep in mind for future reads. The ruthless competitiveness between these sisters is the driving force of the novel. Liza asks her father to connect with his colleague Gillan Levin to deliver her baby. 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. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world. 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. "The Most Fun We Ever Had" is a novel about a family and follows in the footsteps of other reknown novels the chronicle the intricate complexities of close relationships. Dang it. 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. report. Be the first to contribute! The main action of this notably apolitical, all-white, all-straight novel takes place over four seasons, beginning in the spring of 2016 which finds just about every member of the Sorenson family in turmoil. 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. Still, it was indeed very readable! Next up is Violet, unassuming and mild. I was confused at first, too! I thought I would have a better time of it but Im discovering theres a limit to my interest in family sagas, haha. The Most Fun We Ever Had: A Novel Hardcover - June 25 2019 by Claire Lombardo (Author) 4,877 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle Edition $13.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover $36.95 40 Used from $12.35 3 New from $26.47 Paperback $22.72 16 Used from $15.13 17 New from $16.99 Am 3% in and am uber irritated. Synopsis (from cover): When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all thats to come. Thanks! . The Most Fun We Ever Had. influencers in the know since 1933. 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. Wendy and Violet mend old wounds stemming from Wendys losses, both of her husband and her stillborn daughter. Beneath it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents. Violet feels as though she is losing her husband Matt, and struggles to accept Jonah into their lives. Every chapter contains a piece of the pie that you must consume. This time were looking at Claire Lombardos The Most Fun We Ever Had, one of the largest books on the list at over 500 pages. Yet these lush details almost seem to weigh the novel down. 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? Many ways. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents early lean times with chapters about their daughters wobbly forays into adulthood. Lombardo's writing is so elegant - she makes our most complex and fragmented feelings tangible, which is a very rare skill. It does seem like a rather safe and repetitive set, as a whole. Amy Adams ( Sharp Objects) and Laura Dern ( Big Little Lies) are producing a new drama series, The Most Fun We Ever Had, for HBO, Deadline confirmed. Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Most Fun We Ever Had. We already have a strong community, but this event brought us even closer as we cheered and grinded it out next to each other! I do think Lombardos a good writer- I loved seeing how well she fleshed out all of these characters, how the four very different sisters personalities tracked across decades of their lives and how they all interacted with each other. A secret son, concealed by two of the sisters and given for adoption at birth, suddenly reenters their lives fifteen years later, testing the bounds of the familial relationships and finally showing the sisters that there may be more to a good and successful life than keeping up appearances. She finds out after the fact that Ridge already has a long-distance girlfriend, Maggieand that he's deaf. 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. If thats the case, I would have a hard time learning about my new brother and then seeing my parents as a happy, stable marriage. Thank you! The "shining unfathomable orb of their parents, two people who emanated more love than it seemed like the universe would sanction," sets a powerful but daunting example for the couple's children. We all desperately want your life and we all know well never have it, the third-oldest, Liza, confesses in a moment of truth. It looks like the judges were just very interested in books about parenthood this year for some reason! Page edges may . At one point Wendy wonders whether all Asians are prim and conservatively dressed a confusing question to ask when she must encounter Asians every day right outside her luxury apartment, on the streets of the third largest city in America. For me, they were a bunch of pretentious rich people with little love for each other (again the kids). Archived. Ah yes, I was so confused about what the author was trying to say about marriage, since all of these characters seemed so quick to condemn this really successful one! By 2016, they have four radically different daughters, each in a state of unrest. The story shifts backward and . But she became comfortable with her body in adulthood after her husband, after her abbreviated pregnancy in a way that surprised her.. help you understand the book. It made me laugh, made me cry and made me angry. 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. 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. The book also provides perspectives from almost all main characters. . I particularly enjoyed their contrariness, but it wont be the right fit for everyone. It's really hard to believe that 'The Most Fun We Ever Had' is a debut novel. From here, the narration jumps ahead sixteen years to follow a years worth of family drama, divided into seasonal sections. Required fields are marked *. Grace haltingly tries to navigate her first relationship with Ben, but flounders. Violet, however, has two young boys with her husband and does not want to impact their lives. Keep it Clean. Many thanks to Orion. Thanks, Emily! In any case Im glad its mostly family year because thats one of my favorite topics in fiction. I listened to the audio on a staycation so I'll remember it for a while as the book that kept me company, especially since the audio wouldn't end. 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. The Most Fun We Ever Had is a family saga that spans decades and closely follows multiple POV characters. This woman plays such scant role in the plot that she seems present primarily to balance the scales of the familys wealth. A few themes are replayed so often David and Marilyn's canoodling, Violet's uptight rigidity that the book would have benefited from judicious trims, particularly in the flashbacks. That book, which. The Most Fun We Ever Had Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to Its a love story, its a coming of age story, its a generational story, and yet despite everything the book encompasses, its primary purpose seems to be entertainment. Where to start this book was amazing in so many different ways. I've had a day of bliss at @thehausofvenom with my partner. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom. Strange, perhaps, for a woman who'd added four beings to the universe of her own reluctant volition, but a fact nonetheless: Marilyn rued the inconvenient presence of bodies, bodies beyond her control, her . 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. Get The Most Fun We Ever Had from Amazon.com. 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. ", Lombardo's sweeping family drama, fueled by power plays between spouses and between sisters, is operatic in both good ways and bad. Across all of these moments, The Most Fun We Ever Had demonstrates the duality of affection and pain in familial relationships, showing that what holds people together can also drive them apart, and that it is after all easiest to hurt the ones we love. 'The Most Fun We Ever Had' is an intense, edgy family drama brimming with sibling rivalry, marital distress, and soul-binding love that will leave you with an onslaught of emotions. 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 . Even family interactions elicit a mix of exasperation and comfort. This is a character driven story of a present day family on the north shore of Chicago. Here it is in writing, in January of 2019, and I can't wait to look back on this and know how right I was. Pre-publication book reviews and features keeping readers and industry Books that follow a group of characters over decades have always been the kind that speak to me in a special way, namely, The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer - a gold standard that Ive held many other books to over the years. Claire Lombardo's debut is a fascinating epic character driven, multi-generational Chicago family drama with all its complexities through the decades from the 1970s. It certainly made the book more bearable because I wouldn't have lasted till the 50% mark if I was reading the book. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world. Ryan leaves Liza. To be honest, I was intimidated by the length, but when a friend assured me it doesn't drag and that Lombardo's authorial voice is gold, I picked it right up and read it in three days (and it's a 500-pager, so that's saying something!). There was a lot of repetition and I honestly wanted to skip some pages when the characters really got on my nerves. Thank you! I am a fan! Each character was individualized and any one of them could have leaped off the pages. The Most Fun We Ever Had is certainly not boring. This book gives you a behind the scenes look into this familys life and I was so grateful for it because most times we leave books wanting more information. 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. 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. WE GET IT. CLAIRE LOMBARDO earned her MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. A Rich, Engrossing Family Saga, Spiked With Sisterly Malice, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/books/review/most-fun-we-ever-had-claire-lombardo.html, Claire Lombardo describes how she arrived at the Iowa Writers Workshop with a very messy, 813-page draft.. In the novel, four adult sisters are trying to find their way in the world, both guided and hindered by what they see as their parents epic romance, an impressive love story none of the girls is confident about finding for herself. Ooh nope, its one of the four girls who gives a son up for adoption, hes a grandson of the girls parents! Colleen Hoover Get help and learn more about the design. 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. (LogOut/ The parentsMarilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctorstrike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo flings a full deck of narrative cards at us all at once, which she spends the next 500-plus pages patiently putting in order. But this book? I was aware that An American Marriage won last year, but I didnt know it was up against a lot of pretty strong works. Arrive a few minutes early to get a spot by the stage, especially if you have little kids. A room without books is like a body without a soul., [This review contains spoilers heads up!]. Oh, jeez. 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. Every page contains vital information that contributes to the story. The story centers around a couple (David and Marilyn) from when they met toward their golden years, and each of their four very different daughters. 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. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband-and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive. Sydney and Ridge make beautiful music together in a love triangle written by Hoover (Losing Hope, 2013, etc. This is a emotionally engaging read, if overlong, well written, with great character development, and which resonates in its detailed and often realistic depiction of family life and dynamics. Prior to writing The Most Fun We Ever Had, she spent several years doing social work in Chicago. Violet quickly departs avoiding the now fifteen year-old Jonah. The novel is absolutely a pleasant and enjoyable read, but is in no way gritty.. FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP, by In truth, I dont think theres anything at all to learn here. What do they represent? This secret (which Ill talk about next) is what the book pretty much revolves around. Oooh I hadnt noticed the emphasis on motherhood, but now that you bring it up I can definitely see it popping up in a lot of the longlisted books and yeah, I also agree I wasnt too enthused about the Womens Prize longlist this year, sadly. My head hurts from hearing about all that love repeatedly. Claire Lombardo is the next Kingsolver. Basically, a book with loads of potential to explore something interesting, but doesnt go there? 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. But flashbacks to exhausted, fraught times make clear that the Sorensons' relationship hasn't been as smooth as it appears. A family of six subsisting on one doctors salary didnt exactly equate to the lap of luxury for the four girls while growing up (which isnt to say they wanted for anything), but most of them were able to improve their circumstances even further as they reached adulthood- their own children are well-situated indeed. Theres four of you? he asked. Though each is sympathetic and suffering in their own way, they do all make poor choices, sometimes for bad reasons. The ruthless competitiveness between these sisters is the driving force of the novel. The item is very worn but continues to work perfectly. Flashbacks in Part One tell the story of David and Marilyns fortuitious meeting at college and Davids proposal and invitation to join him in Iowa where he will attend medical school. Press J to jump to the feed. Points for Lombardo, again. However, compared to her sisters struggles, Grace is not quite on the same level. I dont like to think that the author is being ignorant, but there are other books Ive read where I seriously just wasnt sure. Jonah calls Wendy from Montana and she retrieves him. I had this in a queue at my library but I may press on with others I want to read first! I had a good time with this book, I really did. I had no idea why Lombardo decided this family saga needs to be 500+ pages. Claire Lombardo, 2019. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Change). Not only did I get to read about whats going on presently, but I got to dive into the history and background, to see how each sisters childhood and her birth order shaped her. The Most Fun We Ever Had. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Claire Lombardos dbut, The Most Fun We Ever Had, chronicles the life of a family over the course of a year, yet it passes as quickly as the pages turn. I do think its appropriate for authors to include characters that are not P.C. You have to really like these characters to spend time in their lives and inside their heads for days at a time. I am calling it this book will win all of the awards. Courtesy of HBO. I love books that make me feel. Ah, sorry you didnt enjoy this one! The work begins with Marilyn Sorensons perspective as she reflects on her four daughters, Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace. This is a great review! All of her complaints are definitely in the book. I could not understand why she wasnt viewing this chance as an opportunity. Lombardos novel is divided into 34 chapters, with dated flashbacks interspersed throughout in order to provide deeper exposition on the relationships between characters. This is a really fun and strong team with lots of synergy. But you don't mind, because the Chicago-based clan of THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD is definitely worth getting to know. Don't Threaten. From the beginning, I realized that Most Fun would be a new standard for me, Lombardo has a way with words and creating characters that just leapt off the page. Some of them bothered me as well, but a lot of the problematic things the characters say and do I took as criticisms of them; I dont think the author was using horrendous digs at less fortunate people out of a place of ignorance, but as a way of showing how privileged and ignorant her characters are. Instead, there are plenty of life events. Trouble signing in? Liza is considering how to help her boyfriend when she becomes pregnant with his child and decides that the best way to deal with that is to cheat on him with a coworker.