All along we feel Ella’s deep longing, her pain at having been so spectacularly cheated by life. Alas, that doesn’t prevent her from coming off as a creepy stalker ... We’re also asked to sustain some serious suspension of disbelief ... The task of untangling the characters’ myriad secrets and the foggy mystery that binds Ella, Jude and Helen together is harrowing, and leads to some cutting of corners ... It also results in a denouement that feels as overly tidy and soulless as a sample home.
[Leavitt's] gift for creating complex, unpredictable yet self-aware protagonists is on full display ... Leavitt infuses a much-told story with contemporary social issues that render the work fresh and provocative and deep ... As we hurtle toward an ending that somehow surprises despite its inevitability, Leavitt urges us to consider the tangle of social issues that her story unearths.
While some of these plot echoes might seem forced in less capable hands, Leavitt reinvents them into a page-turning exploration of love, motherhood, and secrecy ... A couple of key plot hinges, however, are awkward ... But overall, Leavitt is spot-on with her insight into people’s unreliable emotions, needs, and failings. Her characters by and large are real human beings that we come to care about.
The media certainly plays many roles in this story, which has a kind of naïve and fearless narrative energy that will be familiar to readers of Leavitt’s earlier novels ... If you love old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama, this may be just your cup of foxglove tea.
Haphazard ... Leavitt provides depth by exploring Ella and Helen’s complicated and sometimes conflicting maternal feelings, but her propulsive narrative is marred by a melodramatic conclusion and perplexing anachronisms.
