Sunday, December 29, 2013

The Painted Table

 
I found this book to be hard to put down. It was unsettling. The Painted Table was very well-written and the characters were so real I was completely immersed in the story. It's a sad story in so many ways but redemptive and real-life. I found myself with a lot to think about. 
 
The story spans a few generations, with rich history and concentrates mainly on Joann and Saffee. I felt part of this family by the end. I won't tell you the end, but I will say it was lovely and I had a good cry. I was pretty invested by then!
 
 Reading this made me remember you don't know what others are going through, and just how much good love can do.
I left this book on the couch after I finished it and came later to find my adult daughter with it- already on chapter seven. She's taking it with her when she goes home in the morning...that is, if she hasn't already finished it by then.
*I received this book at no charge from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.
 

Book Description

A beautiful heirloom ingrained with family memory has become a totem of a life Saffee would rather forget—a childhood disrupted by her mother’s mental illness.
Saffee does not want the table. By the time she inherits the object of her mother’s obsession, the surface is thick with haphazard layers of paint, and heavy with unsettling memories.
After a childhood spent watching her mother slide steadily into insanity, painting and re-painting the ancient table, Saffee has come to fear that seeds of psychosis may lie dormant within her. But as an adult with a family of her own, Saffee must confront her mother's torment if she wants to defend herself against it.
Traversing four generations over the course of a century, The Painted Table is an epic portrait of inherited memory, proclivity, and guilt. It is a sprawling narrative affirmation that a family artifact—like a family member—can bear the marks of one’s entire past . . . as well as intimations of one's redemption.

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