It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. These chapters enrich the characters by allowing space for their individual stories to be told and provide insight into how Eleanor’s upbringing influences her present life. Exploring the intersections of love and obligation, duty and commitment, the independence of new lifestyles and the appeal of old traditions, Chang’s novel will appeal to fans of Helen Fisher’s Faye Farawayand Tracey Lien’s All That’s Left Unsaid.

We also follow from the viewpoints of each of her parents in Taipei before they came to the US, before having had any children, and from Eleanor's sister's vantage point.Eleanor is prone to avoiding her feelings and often goes to great lengths to make herself small and invisible — a “skill” she cultivated as a child growing up in a household that was often devoid of warmth and tenderness. We follow mostly along with Eleanor, whose mother has recently passed, but we flip back and forth between present day and growing up. Penny, Eleanor’s former supervisor, disapproves of the arrangement because she believes Eleanor is a good scientist who’s not living up to her potential. With multiple POVs, I also felt detached to the characters and I had expected some characters to be deepened. The writing was very good however, and I would definitely read another book by this author with a more linear storyline.

Throughout the book, we readers watch Eleanor make impulsive decisions that she can’t even understand or explain to herself. She ends up pregnant after quitting the program, but their marriage seems to be rocky from the fact he simply gets everything and she struggles.Now that her mother is gone, Eleanor—who acknowledges how much her mother’s approval and disapproval influenced her choices—must consider how to live her life and make sense of it on her own. Portraying an avoidant character is fine, but Eleanor is avoidant in a pretty one-note, one-dimensional way throughout the entire novel, which made for a dull reading experience. Summer’s here, the days are longer, and we’re delivering lots of Poured Over Double Shot episodes to help you plan your summer reading, starting with Jonathan Eig and Héctor Tobar on June 1st. An impromptu celebration on the beach at sunset with champagne becomes a weekly touchpoint to their lives as they learn more about each other and themselves.

In the present timeline however, the mother-daughter relationship wasn’t explored much outside of the first few pages, which felt like a lost opportunity to me. The present time storyline was definitely more engaging, and I wished the book had focused more on that (Eleanor's relationship with her husband, her affair with their co-worker Samir, and the rodent she stole from the lab). I saved so many piercing quotes from this book that I’ll be referring back to, and I can’t wait for this book to find its readers. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor's childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts.Things really begin to hit the fan when Eleanor begins to go off the rails and ends up doing something she really should not have done, leading to irreversible consequences. A riveting, wise, and singular novel about grief, love, longing, and the mysteries of family, A Quitter’s Paradise will linger in your heart and mind.

A QUITTER'S PARADISE is mostly an uneventful novel, with all the messiness and complication of family dynamics.The narration is intimate, poignant, it's almost like reading someone's deepest thoughts: truly beautiful. I found this book on NetGalley and decided to give it a try because it was available in my region and I didn't need to apply to get approved for a copy. Let me start by saying that this book is so beautifully written and charming, that I'm already a fan of Elysha Chang. I find the parental/child relationship hard to take, and more of a business than dictionary definition representation of family. Chang explores the surprising contours of grief and the strange shapes we makes around our grief as we heal.