The Good House

The Good House: A Novel by Ann Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was in the middle of several "My family was a toxic dump, yet I turned out amazing" books, and wanted a break from all the negativity and dysfunction. I desperately needed a book with normal and happy people. This book, indeed, was a fast and somewhat happy read, and the people was somewhat normal, as normal as the people in yours, or my neighborhood.

As a realtor of a quaint New England town near the North Shores, Hildy Good has been a top-seller for many years. She's 60, divorced, kids grown, lives comfortably alone and makes good money. People think she's a witch (which is not true), since she knows everything and everyone quite well, not to mention that she's also the descendant of a witch that was hung at the Salem's Witch Trial. She could just read people and houses very well by observing and noticing clues. Her friends and family also think she's an alcoholic (this might be true,) although she constantly denies it since she could function quite normally after a glass or two. She's a fun, humorous, witty, no-nonsense and likable narrator.

This book reminded me how much I enjoy reading character-driven books. The last few that I enjoyed were The Darlings, The World Without You, The Snow Child and The Death of Bees. There are the rich McCallisters, who just moved in. Brian is busy and so much older than his young, lonely and infertile wife, Rebecca. There's Frank, who is the town garbage man and fix-anything guy....whom Hilda had a special relationship with. There's Peter, who's a shrink with an office upstairs whom Hilda and her friends babysat when younger... There are Patch and Cassie with their special-need son, Jake. I wished the author had described their physical appearance a bit more. The image of Hildy in my visual mind is blurry, although I know her quite well now. However, somewhere in the book, we did learn that Frank looks like a gnome, and Rebecca is skinny and elegant. The author used the following poem to describe her:

"I knew a woman, lovely in her bones......(She moved in circles, and those circles moved)....

A quick and easy read, and the unexpected twist at the end was a surprise.

For those who are interested in my "My family was a toxic dump, yet I turned out amazing" books. I'm also in the middle of: "Wild" and "With or Without You." I just finished "The Death of Bees."

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