Publisher: Doubleday Books Year Published: 2019 Page Count: 532
Synopsis: A multigenerational novel in which the four adult daughters of a Chicago couple–still madly in love after forty years–recklessly ignite old rivalries until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they’ve built.
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that’s to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she’s not sure she wants by a man she’s not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents’.
As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt–given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before–we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons’ past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.
Trying to put into words why I adored this book so much is difficult. I received this novel as a Christmas gift and it sat on my shelf for a few months because I was a bit nervous to dig into a 530 page book that has six “main” characters. I figured social distancing was the perfect time for this read and I was right. From the minute I started, I couldn’t stop and I found myself thinking about the characters constantly. 💛
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The Most Fun We Ever Had tells the story of the Sorenson family—Marilyn and David, who fall in love in the 1970s and their four daughters, Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace—over nearly 50 years. Each daughter faces her own battles, whether it’s being widowed young and struggling with alcoholism, facing the child given up for adoption, dating someone with mental illness, or the fear of telling your family you feel like you’re failing. Marilyn and David come to terms with the dynamic nature life and all the qualms that lead to quiet, beautiful moments. This novel explores family bonds – the bonds so tight you are scared to speak the truth in fear that it will unravel it all, the bonds that need mending but are marred by years of misunderstandings and jealousy, and the bonds that solidify through shared history.
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Likability of characters is something that often comes up when discussing books, and I think what makes this novel work is the balance of human error and redemption, two things that are nearly always in tension when examining family dynamics. There is often a misconception that if kids have seemingly perfect parents who love each other dearly, all the kids will turn out “well.” This story flips that on its head and explores what happens when the pressure to replicate a love so strong actually weakens the foundation and carries an internalized inability to measure up. —
I simply adored the Sorenson family and I was sad to leave them.
Have you read this?
Read It Like Rory 