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Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:When her black sheep brother disappears, Amanda Janvier eagerly takes in her sixteen year-old niece Tally. The girl is practically an orphan: motherless, and living with a father who raises Tally wherever he lands�?? in a Buick, a pizza joint, a horse farm�??and regularly takes off on wild schemes. Amanda envisions that she, her husband Neil, and their two teenagers can offer the girl stability and a shot at a �??normal�?� life, even though their own storybook lives are about to crumble. Seventeen-year-old Chase Janvier hasn�??t seen his cousin in years, and other than a vague curiosity about her strange life, he doesn�??t expect her arrival will affect him much�??or interfere with his growing, disturbing interest in a long-ago house fire that plagues his dreams unbeknownst to anyone else. Tally and Chase bond as they interview two Holocaust survivors for a sociology project, and become startlingly aware that the whole family is grappling with hidden secrets, with the echoes of the past, and with the realization that ignoring tragic situations won�??t make them go away. Will Tally�??s presence blow apart their carefully-constructed world, knocking down the illusion of the white picket fence and reveal a hidden past that could destroy them all�??or can she help them find the tr… (more)
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When Tally, Chase and his best friend prepare to do their project on the holocaust they decide to interview two old men at a nursing home that Chase has met before. As Chase is talking about the opening scene of their video, he lets it be known that to personalize it they will be using Tally's father, who is in Europe looking for relatives who died in the Holocaust. Tally is against this. She won't tell them the real reason that her father is there. These were just a few of the subplots throughout the book. I found it easy to keep all of them separate and at the same time they all tied together.
I loved this book. It was all about secrets and how sometimes holding them in and not talking about the issues will eat away at us until there is nothing left. It is also a book of hope that shows there can be forgiveness and healing. I have really fallen in love with the work of Susan Meissner and look forward to reading many more of her books.
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Overall, I enjoyed the novel quite a bit. I wasn't sure about the husband and wife plot, that showed a couple struggling to stay connected through the realities of parenting, but understood that it was meant to show us how stressful raising these troubled teens really was for the parents. The characters were pretty complicated, and I felt constantly confused by Tally's father and his behavior. In the back of the novel, Meissner commented in an interview that in her work with children and families, that she saw all sorts of parents--unconventional and traditional--that were all good parents in their own way. I thought this was interesting, as I readily wanted to write off Tally's father, but Meissner doesn't really allow you to totally dislike him. With all of its complicated characters and plot twists, I found White Picket Fences to be an engaging read, and one I would recommend to friends and family interested in a clean family drama.
There were parts when the story dragged a little, but for the most part it kept intrigued. My favorite part of the story was the Holocaust survivors telling their story. Not only did it serve a purpose with the plot, but I love to learn about the Holocaust and WWII. What those people survived is unimaginable to me, and how the Nazi's could do that is just beyond me. I don't necessarily gain enjoyment from Holocaust stories, but I feel like knowing these stories may be a step to stopping the hatred that still exists today... But I digress....
The story was very well written. I really liked Amanda and Chase. I just connected with Amanda and even when she wasn't a part of the action I felt like I was seeing it through her eyes. Her thoughts and her ideas fell in line with what I think I would have done in her situation.
This was a pretty good book, I will be reading her other books in the future.
A beautiful yet haunting