4 STARS Ann Hymes is a classmate of mine and I’ve enjoyed the writing she has shared. I was excited to read this book and quickly snapped it up when it became available on Netgalley. From the start, I was impressed by Ann’s turns of phrase, life observations, and bits of wisdom. It is told from the first-person POV of Theresa, who was mostly likable, but at times had me very frustrated. Several stood out to me: Whimsey Towers is not only a very real place for Theresa, but also a metaphor for the independence and free-thinking that she so values. It is a place that holds secrets along with memories of love, some of it illicit. She compares herself to Theodesia, her grandmother, a woman who refused to conform to expectations. At one point, she remarks that “relationships with men are harder for women without broken wings,” almost as if making an excuse for her own difficulties. She loves Whimsey Towers almost as much as any person in her life, at times giving the place too much importance. She seems to see it as the source of her being, a place without which she would be incomplete. She gives it too much power. “Like the rushing flow of streams that meet and blend, our stories share power that roils and carves its way through the landscape with dogged determination.” On aging, Theresa muses: “Do I yearn for my youth by wishing my children had not left theirs?” And Razor tells her: “Hopefully, you are only older than what is outgrown.” Theresa laments her aging mind, wondering whether she has dementia. She comments on the struggles of Mattie’s mother, observing, “the memories had wandered and lay in her head like exhausted nomads.” She fears a similar fate. She feels herself growing dependent on her sons and it bothers her: “I am torn between wanting to be close and needing space. Communication takes work. I am absent and present in one body, living in duality. Sometimes I cannot finish a sentence because getting to the end requires remembering how it began. I am holding on to strands of normalcy that occasionally slip away. Lapses are infrequent, but I fear what may tumble from my lips.” Another snippet: “Memory is a gift not to be taken for granted. It holds all my yesterdays. I think it's easier to stay in the past, because I know my way there.” One of the female characters, explaining her need/desire for numerous male partners, explains it this way: “My father is a farmer. He is careful to rotate his crops, nourishing the soil to get the best harvest each year. The soil can become stagnate (sic - should be stagnant) and barren if not furnished with fresh nutrients. I am like that soil that needs replenishing.” It may surprise you to find that although I loved many things about this book, there were several things that bothered me. My first complaint was with the pacing. Sometimes the book got too bogged down in description and philosophical conjecture. Additionally, conversations between characters were stilted and unnatural. And I never got a really good sense of why the men in Theresa’s life loved her. Presumably, there was something special about her, something magnetic that drew men to her, but as the reader, I never felt privy to what that special thing was. The only thing I felt privy to was her conflicted sense of guilt over the lies she had told in her life as well as her fears of growing older, both mentally and physically. She was tortured by regret and haunted by what-ifs. Given the opportunity to unburden herself, her initial response was to hold her secrets even closer and even pretend she didn’t have any, but this was after numerous personal reflections on her desire to confess to someone. I was surprised by her resistance to confiding in someone and I found it difficult to relate to her pain because she’d been provided with an opportunity to share her load with someone who loved her. In the final analysis, I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the writing. I didn’t relate to Theresa or find her particularly sympathetic as a character and I felt conversations, in general, were unnatural and contrived. As far as philosophical observations go, this book had some great ones. April 11, 2020
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