Songs in Ordinary Time (from Ex Libris)

7/18-7/22/05—Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris
Another long book—over 700 pages. While I can appreciate the way the scenes of various lengths played out much like an ongoing song and chorus, it made it harder to read. There were many, many—too many—characters to keep up with. I very nearly put the book down early on because I couldn’t keep up with everybody. It was only after I decided to relax and simply read and not worry about who was who that I could begin to enjoy the book at all. In the end, as well, there weren’t a lot of sympathetic characters. Morris apparently hones in on the mother at the end as if she were the main character (I thought all along it was more Benji than anyone else), but its hard for me to feel at all sorry for her being alone at the end because I spent the majority of the novel wanting to slap the crap out of her.