I stayed up until 3:30 am to finish this book. I found it very well written & made me think about adding to my life as a mother & wife. It was definitely a page turner.

This is my first Kristin Hannah's book and generally I liked it. It is easy to read and it involves emotionally. The only problem with the plot is that it's too flat and predictable.

A desperate housewife finds herself in a vacuum. She has plenty of money and time but she does not know what to do with her life. Her children are grown up, her husband is busy with his own career and suddenly all her skills of being a good wife and a perfect mother are not required anymore. In a desperate attempt to find something to fill the emptiness Elizabeth rediscovers her forgotten talent. And I'd say it's a too easy solution. The heroine not only has money, freedom and time, she also has a talent. Isn't it too much? I mean, this Elizabeth is way too perfect - she's a patient and supportive wife, she's a great mom, understanding and all, she's a great artist and after all these years of doing nothing with her abandoned gift she still appears to be able to create some piece of art. The cure for her problems seems to be too obvious to be interesting. There's no serious obstacle for her to find a way to raise her self-esteem.

Elizabeth's husband is also a kind of cliché - handsome, popular, rich and famous. On his way of reconsidering their marriage he faces many temptations that constantly come in form of a young, pretty and sexy woman. And here too, all characters are too beautiful and perfect to be real. Men in the world of women literature are weak and easily manipulated, and Jack doesn't make an exception. His infidelity to Elizabeth is given as something inevitable and rather forgivable, while Elizabeth's shy attempt to dive into a relationship with another man is from the very beginning doomed to be a failure. Another dull cliché...

And anyway, the book is not bad and I enjoyed reading it.

I really enjoyed this book. KH has a style of writing that really captures the reader's attention. She never fails to entertain. Birdie and Jack had been married for 24 yrs. and everything seemed to fall apart. Daughters Jamie and Steph were away at college and Birdie was restless. Jack moves to NY and finds the single life grand.

So we have two people in there 40's. The female is an artist that put her dreams on hold to take care of her philandering husband and children. Now that her kids are out of the house and she realizes just how boring being married to a selfish lout can be she decides to ask for a separation.

So they separate she joins a passionless group and starts painting again. He starts banging his assistant and feels guilty about it because he used to be a serial cheater until his wife gave him the ultimatum, your family or your lust. He chooses his family and is never really happy with that decision. Now he has everything he ever wanted and he is lonely because his wife is no longer there to brag too. He realizes that he can't relate to his daughters without his wife's help because he has always been too selfish to try. So now he has a problem, either he keeps sleeping with girls his daughters age and slowly loses even the small connection he has to his family or he decides to finally be an adult rather then just play at being one. Yawn. Truthfully he should have told his assistant that sleeping with the people you work with is a stupid and dangerous thing to do. Though I think the assistant figured that one out for herself.

The wife thinks she is a failure because her paintings did not sell out on the first day. Get real, Van Gough lost an ear and nobody gave a darn about Vermeer until decades after his death. As an artist I would think she would know that art is subjective and tourists are not the best people to gauge your work by, duh. Anyway, she finally becomes friends with her step mom after her father dies (the springboard for the story). I think the adultery was gleaned over and is something that should have been addressed. His wife was faithful for 25 years and well he wasn't. Yeah he finally figured out that he really did not deserve her. Which is my problem with this book. Why should she have to go back again to this man? Why not allow her to meet a man who is worthy of her? This book is supposed to be a precautionary tale not to take your family and love for granted. Well in the end everything was just great and all their problems were resolved with a quick conversation. Where is the lesson in that? Boring.

Elizabeth "Birdie" Shore has been aware for some time now that her marriage hasn't been quite right. However, after following her husband, a former NFL star turned small-town sports newsman--around from town to town for years, she has finally settled into a house she loves, and so while the problems in her marriage occasionally bother her, she is mostly able to ignore them. Meanwhile, her husband, Jack, has been desperate for years to reclaim some of his former glory, and when the opportunity to break a big story comes his way, he runs with it. When Jack accepts a fabulous job opportunity on the opposite coast without even consulting Elizabeth, she reluctantly prepares to leave the home she loves to follow her husband once again. However, a sudden loss causes her to re-evaluate her life, and for the first time, she decides to follow her OWN dreams.

When I first started this book, it seemed like yet another story of a woman trying to find herself--mildly interesting, yet nothing particularly new or different. Also, I found Elizabeth and some of the other characters (namely her Southern stereotype father) to be somewhat cliched. As I continued reading, however, both the story and the characters became more rich and complex, and I became more engrossed in the novel, making it easier to overlook the occasional flaws. Overall, this was an enjoyable summer read about a woman in transition which I'd rate at 3 1/2 to 4 stars.