Right After The Weather, by Carol Anshaw
Atria - 2019
General Fiction
Print
288 Pages
General Fiction
288 Pages
* I received this ARC courtesy of Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange of an honest review. This does not influence the following opinions which are my own.
My Rating (out of 5)
⭐⭐⭐
This book is very slow to start, but redeems itself in the second half with thoughtful and insightful prose.
Cate is a theater set designer in her early 40's, barely earning a living. She is struggling to make ends meet and is still accepting money from her parents. Her personal life is not in better shape. Her ex-husband is staying in her spare room while he sorts out his most recent marriage failure. She is seeing someone new, but not completely emotionally detached from a previous relationship. Her best friend Neale - a single mother and yoga instructor, lives nearby and is Cate's most stable and meaningful relationship, and a role model for the more adult life she wishes to lead.
As the story is told, we get brief glimpses of troubled couple Nathan and Irene who have criminal and sociopathic tendencies. One day they invade Neale's home and attack her. Cate walks in on the attack and in a split second and a flash of violence Cate takes action. While she saves Neale, the violence imprinted on each of them that day has a profound and lasting impact on them both.
Right After The Weather had a rough start for me. I admit, I am the kind of reader that doesn't do well with long, slow lead-ins. I need a book to hit me with some action or a character I can really connect to, or something else substantial reasonably early on in a story. I struggled with this book for the first half, as it passed without capturing my attention and I found myself putting it down easily. In fact I almost put it down and gave up on it.
Cate is a theater set designer in her early 40's, barely earning a living. She is struggling to make ends meet and is still accepting money from her parents. Her personal life is not in better shape. Her ex-husband is staying in her spare room while he sorts out his most recent marriage failure. She is seeing someone new, but not completely emotionally detached from a previous relationship. Her best friend Neale - a single mother and yoga instructor, lives nearby and is Cate's most stable and meaningful relationship, and a role model for the more adult life she wishes to lead.
As the story is told, we get brief glimpses of troubled couple Nathan and Irene who have criminal and sociopathic tendencies. One day they invade Neale's home and attack her. Cate walks in on the attack and in a split second and a flash of violence Cate takes action. While she saves Neale, the violence imprinted on each of them that day has a profound and lasting impact on them both.
Right After The Weather had a rough start for me. I admit, I am the kind of reader that doesn't do well with long, slow lead-ins. I need a book to hit me with some action or a character I can really connect to, or something else substantial reasonably early on in a story. I struggled with this book for the first half, as it passed without capturing my attention and I found myself putting it down easily. In fact I almost put it down and gave up on it.
But there was redemption in the second half. At about the half-way point in the book the attack happens, and after that point I found the book interesting and with depth and insight into the human condition - especially as it is after suffering a violent and traumatic event. Not only the direct effects on those who were there that day, but also the effects on their interpersonal relationships with other friends, and family and even the other friends and family themselves.
This was a good book with beautiful prose and great insight into the ways violence can affect people. Unfortunately for me, it was somewhat burdened by its slow beginning.
Happy Reading,
Christine
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