Road Ends - Mary Lawson

Title: Road Ends
Author: Mary Lawson
Pages (File Size): 368 (2.2 MB)
Published: 2013
Challenges: Blogger Summer Reading, Canadian Book, E-Book Reading, Historical Fiction, I Love Libraries
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary, Canadian
Edition: E-book
Source: Library

Description: Roads End brings us a family unravelling in the aftermath of tragedy: Edward Cartwright, struggling to escape the legacy of a violent past; Emily, his wife, cloistered in her room with yet another new baby, increasingly unaware of events outside the bedroom door; Tom, their eldest son, twenty-five years old but home again, unable to come to terms with the death of a friend; and capable, formidable Megan, the sole daughter in a household of eight sons, who for years held the family together but has finally broken free and gone to England, to try to make a life of her own.  

Thoughts: I had trouble following the storyline in the book at times, in that I could not find out what the focus of the book was.  While I enjoyed Megan's storyline, as she was the "normal" on in the family.  I found that reading the other perspectives difficult to get through and that they seemed to slow the book down to the point that I had to force myself to finish the book.

For a large portion of the book, I was unsure of why there was this pall cast over the book and felt scattered as a result.  The book was well written and made one feel as though you really in 1960s London and in a small northern Ontario town.

I think part of the problem that I had with book is that when I read Crow Lake a number of years ago, I was left wanting more, whereas with this book, I could hardly wait until this book had been completed.

Bottom line: While the book seems to be promising, the book fell a little short for me and that was probably a little depressing for me. If you like other contemporary Canadian authors or authors that set their books in small towns, you probably will enjoy this one, as well as fans of Mary Lawson.  Recommended.

Rating: 3/5

Pages for 2014: 15,534

If you have read this book, what did you think of it?