The Other Mother:

I finally FINALLY got to finish a book I started a couple weeks ago. Let me tell you right now that I should NOT have started it when I knew I had so much going on because it was hard to set aside.

The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross is one of those stories you start and then NEVER put down until sadly, you have to because it's over. I had to split my reading time between college classes, studying for finals and even in the hospital room while my best friend was in labor. I finished it tonight in a comfortable chair, flanked by my own lovely "furry" child.

The story goes a little something like this: Thea and Amanda become neighbors then almost friends then maybe rivals then almost friends but always stay complex women over the course of a year spanning from September 2000 until September 2001 in a New Jersey suburb.

The book is divided into months and the different view points of Thea, a stay-at-home-mother of three and Amanda, a working-just-turned-mother. This works well and moves the plot along while giving a more complete story altogether. The writing is beautiful and very poetic at times and made me all but dream of the arrival of Autumn leaves and big, fat pumpkins.

I found myself rooting for various aspects of each woman and then being upset with them for their differences as well. They are both deep and well-developed and have both strengths as well as flaws. Nobody is perfect, and things aren't always as they seem.

If you like suspense-filled novels with complex women written poetically and true this is the book for you!

~~J