Here Among Us
By: Maggie Harryman
Release Date: October 1st, 2012
Genre(s): Contemporary/Fiction
My Review: (4/5 stars*)
*Hello all - today is my tour stop on the Here Among Us Tour hosted by: Sage's Blog Tours. Just below is my review of this heartfelt novel! Enjoy!*
Here Among Us is charming, insightful, and heartfelt. A fun book to read on an uneventfully rainy day. The characters could be a reflection of my own family for there are so many similarities. I love when novels can make you feel the exact emotion that the characters are experiencing; which was accomplished wonderfully. Here Among Us is extremely relatable and you can draw upon many of the issues and topics discussed; easily finding a bridge between this fictional story and your own realities.
Flynn O'Shea is very cynical and suspicious of her family's motives for all her past dealings with them has proven this. Even more so when her sister Maeve forces her to stay with her for the Thanksgiving holiday knowing full well that they can't tolerate each other. Didi is calm, collected, and has an interestingly strained relationship with her mother Flynn. She is constantly annoyed by her mother's behavior and just wants to find some common ground between them. I found I related most with Didi and realized how much of the same characteristics we both share and that made me want to read on to see how her and the rest of her family's drama was handled. I'm glad I gave this book a chance because it was a really good read and it really made you feel connected to each individual. Each O'Shea has secrets they aren't divulging which is an entertaining exploration especially reading about there life stories and how they all distance themselves from one another and how they come together again.
The story is riddled with family drama, pain & loss and the rediscovery of old love. Not normally the genre I review but I read the summary and felt this novel would be something special, and it was. It's inspiring, written well, and just overall a lovely read that will capture both your mind and heart. Told from many perspectives this story follows the every day struggles of the dysfunctional O'Shea family. Admittedly at times I became a little confused as to whose view I was reading from but it didn't take away from the story. Here Among Us had many important life lessons and wise advice within its telling. Like all families no one is perfect. Maggie Harryman creates a very believable tale with extremely realistic characters. DEFINITELY WORTH READING!
Synopsis:
When unemployed San Francisco attorney, Flynn O’Shea, and her teenaged daughter, Didi, are summoned to New Jersey for the Thanksgiving holiday by Flynn’s socialite sister, Maeve, she expects a fight.
After all, she has been battling Maeve most of her life. Disagreeing about the extent of their Irish mother’s creeping dementia and the fate of the family’s thriving restaurant business, named for their beloved, long dead father, Paddy, is surely a recipe for a world-class brawl.
What Flynn doesn’t expect is the fragile truce the sisters forge to save O’Shea’s from the clutches of Maeve’s scheming husband, Jeffrey. Flynn and Maeve are reluctantly aided by their forty-four-year-old brother, Osheen, a handsome Peter Pan still cruising the Jersey shore, getting high and dodging responsibility.
And while Didi tries to convince her mother that “everything is as it should be,” just when Flynn is sure she’s gained the upper hand on Jeffrey, her own mother’s shocking confession sends her into a wine-soaked tailspin and forces her to deal once and for all with the ghosts of her past. Devastated, Flynn must choose to save O’Shea’s or risk losing forever all she has left of her father.
In Here Among Us, the O’Sheas find themselves dealing with the very timely issue of Alzheimer’s, a disease that strips the victim's identity and wreaks havoc on the family left to pick up the pieces. But Flynn, Osheen and Maeve’s troubles began long before their mother started to “slip.” For the O’Sheas, much of their shared angst is rooted in the single most devastating event of their lives—the death of their father when they were young children. The novel explores not only how deep wounds can seem impossible to heal, but how refusing to let go of the stories the O'Sheas desperately cling to about who they are, threatens to hasten their demise.
After all, she has been battling Maeve most of her life. Disagreeing about the extent of their Irish mother’s creeping dementia and the fate of the family’s thriving restaurant business, named for their beloved, long dead father, Paddy, is surely a recipe for a world-class brawl.
What Flynn doesn’t expect is the fragile truce the sisters forge to save O’Shea’s from the clutches of Maeve’s scheming husband, Jeffrey. Flynn and Maeve are reluctantly aided by their forty-four-year-old brother, Osheen, a handsome Peter Pan still cruising the Jersey shore, getting high and dodging responsibility.
And while Didi tries to convince her mother that “everything is as it should be,” just when Flynn is sure she’s gained the upper hand on Jeffrey, her own mother’s shocking confession sends her into a wine-soaked tailspin and forces her to deal once and for all with the ghosts of her past. Devastated, Flynn must choose to save O’Shea’s or risk losing forever all she has left of her father.
In Here Among Us, the O’Sheas find themselves dealing with the very timely issue of Alzheimer’s, a disease that strips the victim's identity and wreaks havoc on the family left to pick up the pieces. But Flynn, Osheen and Maeve’s troubles began long before their mother started to “slip.” For the O’Sheas, much of their shared angst is rooted in the single most devastating event of their lives—the death of their father when they were young children. The novel explores not only how deep wounds can seem impossible to heal, but how refusing to let go of the stories the O'Sheas desperately cling to about who they are, threatens to hasten their demise.
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