Open House (2000) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• David: Samantha's husband who decides he wants a divorce
• Rita: Samantha's good friend
• Travis: Son of Samantha and David
• Samantha: Main character who tries to put her life together
• Lydia: A woman who moves in with Samantha

Quotes edit see section history

show spoilers

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• When does the time come when you stand in front of your grown-up woman’s mirror and feel contentment for what you see? Ever?

  Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers

• You live your life, and you get to ask for things, and sometimes they are given to you.

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

• I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• my mother simply lost too much and repaired herself in the only way she was able; that, in fact, she is continuing to repair herself, hour by hour, the pendulum of the cuckoo clock swinging in the light and the dark of all the days that have passed since my father died at this same brown wooden kitchen table.

  Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers

• But you know, he said that at least he knew right then that it was a good moment. Said mostly you don’t know, in this life, you don’t know when it’s happening. You look back later and say, Oh! Well now, that was a good time! But he said he knew it then. Said he knew it lots of times. He said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ve been blessed.’ ”

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

• I think most young people today are so focused on tomorrow they forget all about today. And I think they’re as afraid of happiness as they are of pain! Scared to say they care. Scared to take a chance. Scared to say they’re just as sentimental and full of human need as people always have been and always will be.”

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• When we were roommates in college, Rita had once asked, extremely gently, if my mother were mentally retarded. “No,” I said. “Just . . . Southern.” That was the only explanation I could come up with at the time. And I still make do with it.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• Divorce is a series of internal earthquakes, that’s what it is, one after the other.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• Oh, what I want to do is hand my life over to someone else. That’s all. And they could rearrange everything into something that would make sense. There, they could say; now, was that so hard? Well, for me, yes. It is too hard for me. I am no good at my own life.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• This is my new life: I push pain away all day, and the moment I put my arms down it walks into me and has a seat.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• California

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Poisonwood Bible, and followed by Drowning Ruth.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Elizabeth Berg (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

More Books Like This edit see section history