The View from Alameda Island

The View of Alameda Island

About the Book:

From the outside looking in, Lauren Delaney has a life to envy—a successful career, a solid marriage to a prominent surgeon and two beautiful daughters who are off to good colleges. But on her twenty-fourth wedding anniversary Lauren makes a decision that will change everything.

Lauren won’t pretend things are perfect anymore. She defies the controlling husband who has privately mistreated her throughout their marriage and files for divorce. And as she starts her new life, she meets a kindred spirit—a man who is also struggling with the decision to end his unhappy marriage.

But Lauren’s husband wants his “perfect” life back and his actions are shocking. Facing an uncertain future, Lauren discovers an inner strength she didn’t know she had as she fights for the love and happiness she deserves.

My Comments:

This book was unbelievable.  I don't mean exceptionally good or exceptionally bad; I mean that so many improbable things happened that by the end of the book there was no doubt that it was fiction.  While there was nothing that happened that in and of itself was impossible, the combination just had me shaking my head.  

One of the impossible stories had to do with a Catholic priest.  After many years in the priesthood, the last few on the "bishop track" Fr. Tim decides that while he still has faith in God and in the Church, he no longer wants to be a priest--he wants to work for an organization that serves the poor, and, of course, he doesn't want to be celibate anymore.  Once he makes the decision to leave, he gets into a relationship with a woman he has known for years and in the space of a few months has been laicized and has married the woman in a Catholic church.  

Ok, I can accept that if Robyn Carr is not Catholic she wouldn't realize how impossible that is, but the book main character's first marriages are each abusive in their own way and the behavior of each ex just gets stranger and stranger as the book progresses.  If either one of them had a spouse like those it would be unusual; that they both did?  Just bizarre.  At the end of the book something  happens to the ex's and it is all just too convenient.  

On the other hand, I really liked Lauren and how she stepped up to take control of her life.  Her new man is everything her husband wasn't--focused on her and what is good for her rather than on himself.  

All in all, I've seen much better from Carr but she did keep me reading and involved in the story until the end.  

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.  Grade:  B-