Eloise Hempel could not wait to leave Cincinnati. She was successful in her pursuits and landed a job teaching at Harvard. Quite an accomplishment for a 28 year old. Her world falls apart with one phone call. The call, from her eleven year old niece, lets her know that her only sister and her husband have been killed in an accident. Eloise returns to Cincinnati to care for the children ages 2, 7 and 11 since her mother is unwilling/unable to do so.


Fast forward 17 years. All three children are now grown and Eloise, who has remained in Cincinnati out of obligation is ready to dump the historical family home and get on with her life. Of course life is not that easy. Her mother won’t sign the house over so she can sell it and the young adults do not want to move out. Eloise feels her life has been wasted in this city and feels the kids need to go elsewhere and have careers and lives. As the struggle plays out Eloise begins to reflect on if the sacrifice she made was worth it.


I felt the book was well written and explored the difficulty in family relationships and the expectations we have for each other.
( )

I picked this up because of the setting. And the book is, in fact, full of references to real places in Cincinnati. Even so, it didn't seem to have a strong sense of place. But I didn't feel it went much of anywhere. Not much character development. Not much plot. Not for me.

Denio branch only.. but it would cover Ohio for the 50-state challenge.

I found this a book of very variable quality writing. Some aspects were well written, but much of it was too 'tabloid' for my liking. The three orphaned children were not at all sympathetically or deeply developed, and their lives seemed to be stuck in early teenage romanticism. The 'lesbian' aunt was portrayed as being willing and able to easily switch from her long-time female relationship to having a sexual relationship with a man, with really minimal self examination. OK, I'm not a lesbian myself, but I reckon there's not many who would behave as superficially as this person. This book is indeed very location-oriented (Cincinnati), as other LibraryThing reviewers have observed, and that's not necessarily bad. A much more respectable author, Elizabeth Hay, has said "location is everything" but when she writes you can see the truth of her statement. Leah Stewart's writing does seem to me to be a bit less profound in making out that geographic connection. On the other hand, I've never been to Cincinnati, so I'd have to allow that possibility that it is the sort of place that doesn't have so much impact. ( )

Not a "big" novel, but nearly flawless. At 28, Eloise leaves her new job as a Harvard professor to move back to Cincinnati to care for her sister's three children. Once the children are grown, Eloise has to decide if her life is there or elsewhere.

Each of the three grown children, but especially Theo (Theodora) and Josh, are interesting, realistic twenty-somethings, and the sibling dynamics are both close and imperfect, as the three test the roles they have always assumed.

Each character is forced to consider the themes of Eloise's second book-in-progress: location and identity. They face decisions about career and relationships; their struggles are realistic without any manufactured high drama.

"I mean, you're yourself in every place, of course, but some places bring out a better version. Or maybe not better. Maybe just the version that feels right." (Eloise, 361) ( )