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Title: No family can be this dysfunctional.
Review: What a great beginning! The story brought me into the small world of a Massachusetts town. The characters were believable and down to earth. Unfortunately, the book did not continue to be either believable or down to earth. I have never read about so many dysfuntional people or situations. There was alcoholism, incest, battering, sex with a 14 year old, low self-esteem, divorce, animal cruelty, small town politics, emotional abuse, and more machinations than anyone should put in one book. I could not relate to many of the main characters by the end of the story, although the daughter was the most interesting. Often the prose would get so flowery and/or detailed that I ended up daydreaming while trying to read. The greatest sadness was that I know this could have been so much better. That faith in the author kept me reading until the end. I do look forward to reading other books by Alice Hoffman, hoping that this one was an anomoly.
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