Off Season
by Anne Rivers Siddons
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Book Reviews of Off Season
Book Review: Jarring ending
Summary: 3 Stars
I pre-ordered this book months ago and was so looking forward to receiving it. In the back of my mind I remembered the author's previous novel Islands, and I hoped that she would not finish with a similar ending, which I found jarring and out of place. While I consider this book light reading, I enjoyed reading about Lilly's childhood, her parents, and her first love. Also, the descriptions of Maine, the ocean, and the local wildlife were interesting and often lush. I felt the spiritual/mystical dimension worked well, at least until the end of the book when it became predominant and overbearing. When in the book Lilly leaped from age 13 to 18 and subseqently met Cam, the storyline did not work as well for me. I felt that the instantaneous adoration between Lilly and Cam was strained and unbelievable, as was their courtship. Lilly's father's character at this stage also became unrealistic to me. He too easily changed his positions on what Lilly's future should hold. This is not to say that his first position was correct; but I find it hard to believe that for someone so adamant, he gave way so easily. Then we leap to 20 years later, and even 40 years later. While I searched for connections between Lilly the girl to Lilly the young woman, and then middle-aged wife at the end, I could not find a common thread, or at least until her and Cam's separate secrets were discovered. Especially with Cam, I felt blindsided. Not knowing the fundmamental basis of his childhood, how could I know him at all, or understand how he thought about and felt things? Even knowing his secret at the end didn't help me understand how it played out and the repercussions it caused. There are just too many loose ends to understand cause and effect. Yes, I can all too well understand Lilly's shock at the end of the book; but as a reader, it leaves me feeling uneasy and as if the story is unfinished. Anne Rivers Siddons is a good writer. I only wish she wrote the second half of the book as well as she did the first.Book Review: Poignant story about life and love
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (11/08)
I found "Off Season" to be a compelling and poignant story. It is about life, the complications of family, love and incredible loss. Overall, the book was well written and enjoyable to read.
When Lilly Constable McCall loses her husband to an untimely death, she is not sure how to pick up the pieces. As she feels the world closing in on her, she decides to return to the one place she can find comfort, her family home in Maine. When Lilly arrives, she finds she can breathe easier and as she relaxes, the memories about all the important things in her life come rushing back.
Every summer, Lilly and her family spent the summer in their summer cottage in Maine. Her eleventh summer was a very memorable one. During that summer, Lilly spent her time trying to figure out her complicated relationship with her Mom, an artist and activist who was just coming into her own. This is the summer that Lilly also experienced love for the first time in her life. When the summer ends in tragedy, Lilly has to learn to deal with her emotions in a way that will impact the rest of her life.
The story then follows Lilly's life as she must deal with her Mom's illness and the aftermath of that. So much happens in her life that she really grows up more quickly than she should. The one place that Lilly finds peace through all of this is in the water and she becomes quite a proficient underwater swimmer. When Lilly meets Cam, who is fun and loving, she begins to really live for the first time. As Cam's wife, a mother and sculptor, she finds real happiness for the first time in her life.
With her children grown and married and Cam gone, Lilly must figure out what is next in her life. Maine is the only place that she can possibly find the answers that she is looking for. I recommend "Off Season" by Anne Rivers Siddons for anyone who enjoys reading about family and relationships.
Book Review: Revisiting the Past...
Summary: 5 Stars
In her newest novel, Anne Rivers Siddons has triumphed. Off Season is a beautiful rendering of one family, the connections between its members, and the flawed relationships created by secrets and betrayal.
When Lilly Constable McCall loses her husband Cam, to an untimely death, she escapes to the family's summer home on the coast of Maine. It is here that all of her memories, both beautiful and painful, descend...
It all washes over her, just as the coastal tides sweep the shores---memories of beautiful family vacations, childhood friendships, first love. And pain. Horrible, searing pain that can only be appeased by allowing the memories, good and bad, to sweep over her so that she can
finally come to grips with the secrets and betrayals of one long ago summer...the last one she spent with her birth family at the coastal house. When she experienced her first love and her first loss.
She remembers everything now. How, after the first pain and loss, followed so quickly by another, her heart decides that it is too much, so she retreats into a hermit-like existence. Protecting herself from further pain. She turns to a new obsession and becomes an underwater
swimmer, escaping each day, wearing her wetsuit and helmet...Until she meets Cameron McCall.
They fall in love, marry, have children...And she thinks she knows everything there is to know about him. They are two peas in a pod...right?
But when he dies and when she escapes again to her summer home, she learns more about him. And about herself.
An enchanting story of love, loss, and renewal, this tale is a beautiful addition to Ms. Siddons' collection of family sagas.
Book Review: entertaining family dram
Summary: 4 Stars
Fifty three years old Lilly Constable McCall knows she has lived a most fortunate life as she married her beloved soulmate Cam and raised together fine children. He was a highly regarded architect while she was a popular sculptor. They are decades into a loving marriage that both expect would last for many more years. Then their love story ended when Cam died in Edgewater, Maine.
Feeling more than just grief, Lilly feels she has no reason to live. However, she obsesses over going to the family cottage in Edgewater; a place she spent a lot of her childhood there. She muses about the summer of 1962 where Peaches Davenport is jealous of Lilly. not so much because of the material possessions or even the interest Jon Lowell seemed to have with then eleven years old Lilly. It was her parents she coveted. Peaches wanted to be the daughter of a GW professor and the feminist rights activist and artist mother; whereas Lilly hated her father's total control of her and her mom's disdain for a tomboyish daughter, preferring cute Caroline Kennedy. However, the middle age Lilly will soon learn you can't go home even when it feels like déjà vu especially betrayal.
This is an entertaining family drama starring an interesting middle age woman overwhelmed by grief who hopes to recapture her passion for life by returning to a place she cherished at one time although that summer ended in betrayal. Lilly does not handle loss well and soon will have to deal with another death; preferring to cocoon herself into isolation. Readers will root for her to overcome her understandable depression, but will feel blitzed by a climax that seems off key. In spite of the ending, fans of Anne Rivers Siddons will enjoy the deep poignant OFF SEASON.
Harriet Klausner
Book Review: Mainstream literature
Summary: 3 Stars
The story begins shortly after the funeral services of Lilly Constable McCall's husband, Cam. Against her daughters' protests, she decides to head to coastal Maine where her family's cottage and its memories await her. Lily takes us back to her childhood of innocence and the losses she experienced and then her life with Cam.
Before I go further, let me make something perfectly clear. I feel Anne Rivers Siddons is a phenomenal writer. In OFF SEASON, she digs deep, exposing the human side in all of us. Do you hear a "but" coming? There really isn't one, but Siddons goes too deep that it's painful for me to experience. The last time I was moved to such a state was over Terms of Endearment. The writer packed such an emotion punch that leaves me so sad and full of pain days after reading the last page. It's a wonderful literary read, but sensitive types might feel Lily's pain all the way to their bones.
Now that I have made that perfectly clear, the ending was a total let down. I can understand no happily ever after, but this left me bitter. This is just a suggestion. If this isn't an author you tried before, try another book first. This was my first and it's totally ruined me for reading another.
These are the things I look for in a good story. I had a heck of a time getting into the book. I picked it up several times and what I read was good, but it wasn't enough to hold my interest. So for me, it had some dry spots.
The second problem was at the end. I just thought that was wrong. Maybe I became too wrapped up in Lily. But I asked the question what was the purpose for Cam's betrayal and couldn't come up with a logical answer. That was cruel, totally cruel. The book doesn't get a check in the good ending department.