I really enjoyed reading this book and it sure was hard to put down once I started getting into it. I love books like these only because they are more true to read about everyday problems people deal with. I would like to read other books written by this author. ( )

Readers will instantaneously get sucked into this most peculiar love story just like a brand new Hoover. As the author states, it's a tale of, "family, lies and betrayal", and he captures the characters sentiments to a tee, for he very well should considering it was told to him straight from the horse's mouth.
It's a harrowing roller coaster ride of emotions and it is not the book to be read late at night lounging next to your spouse. I even found it difficult to read at work as it was balancing between my knees while I answered phone calls from nasty customers and typed up spreadsheets that will probably wind up in the shredder anyway. Expect to chuckle, cry, feel your heart swell and even yell out a few wtf's and omg's. It is way more than just fiction, it is journey through a reading experience I have never witnessed before and will never forget. I found myself awake at night thinking what could possibly happen next as the book glared at me glistening through a sliver of moonlight atop my bedstand. Then, I made the story stand still in time and wait a whole day until I gobbled up the last few chapters because I was so engrossed in the wonderment of it all. I didn't want it to end...or, did I?
Now excuse me while I have a cigarette, check my freezer for the last of the "iced" cream and drop a few shekels into my piggy bank so I can actually take that trip to the promised land I've been saving up for before it's too late. ( )

A journey of a family, the good (rare), the bad (often), that cleverly draws you in. The hardship of a family, a mother who was alone with her children too much and a father absent most of the time. Two daughters who are opposite in most every way. The surprising outcome was an emotionally tribute to the love that survives. Well done. ( )

Engrossing. After Helen says "Darkness. Deep. Packed. All the way down." ([p.26) I wanted to know her secret.
The characters changes, or become more themselves, as the story progresses. Theodore, merely self-confident and roguish yet sensitive at the beginniing, seems quite asinine by the end. Helen, responsible for keeping the family together, goes thru a harsh and angry period. The time frame is fluid, shifting from present, to a new perspective on a past event, to a future perspective. The narrator may intimate future changes or bring our attention to what's going on. Jeffrey is skilled enough to make it all work.
As a second daughter, I looked for resonances, and found them, though as I prepare to care for my elderly mother I can't imaging a similar future unfold. While Jeffrey may not have captured women's thoughts accurately, he has a good sense of the dynamics. The "what if" section is hilarious and a good lesson to all of us longing for what we don't have. I look forward to reading The First Daughter from Regina's viewpoint (humor from the back cover blurbs didn't hit me until after I finished the book).
The one part of the book that threw me was trying to figure out what era it was set in. Dates are never mentioned yet there are enough cultural cues that makes me believe it starts in the 1960's. Yet we have, for example, teenagers wearing nose rings and saying "whatever". Did Jeffrey not remember slang from the '80's, or did he intend to give the reader an understanding of the teens' behavior in terms we could relate to? I'm so curious I'll have to research--when was the Barracuda popular? When were personal computers first proposed? ( )

As the bookjacket says -- a funny but poignant, unusual but beautiful love story. It's about a disintegrating family, but particularly about the complex relationships between mother, daughters, sisters, and the husband-father who is either the villain or the victim, depending on your perspective. There's a rather unexpected reversal at the end, too, which rather affects your interpretation of everything you've just read. Plenty of humor and a good amount of pain; sort of like life, for most people, at least depending upon your perspective. ( )