All Our Lives

ISBN 0380778084 - Despite the fact that the cover looks a bit like a romance novel, and the few gratuitous sex scenes, All Our Lives is a pretty good book. Eddie is a lawyer whose one indiscretion led his wife, Caroline, to end their marriage. He has no explanation for why he cheated, all he knows is that he wants another chance. Caroline was, at that time, a housewife and in love with her husband - that's why it hurt so much when she saw the proof of his affair with her own eyes. Now she's on the verge of becoming a lawyer herself, and not about to trust this man again. Everything's changed - except that she still loves him. While his parents have been making a mess of their lives, their son George has been quietly going about his own, almost a perfect child. Not their daughter, Janey. She fights with her mother, who she blames for pretty much everything, and she finds what she thinks is love with a slightly older, more experienced boy who slowly introduces her to sex. Eventually, the things she was taught all her life convince her that they should wait to have sex, but Marcus disagrees, setting off a chain of terrible events that draw Eddie and Caroline together to help their daughter. I found it interesting that almost every character had been hurt by their father. Caroline's parents were both drunks, Marcus' father is an overbearing bully who accidentally warps his son by trying to be better than his own father. Marcus' mother, Berdena and Eddie, even Janey - everyone's father seems to have failed them somehow and a whole list were failed by their husbands and/or boyfriends, as well. Good thing few men are likely to be reading a book with a flowery, white-picket fence cover - they'd never recover! This tendency isn't overbearing men-bashing, by the way; it's low-key in most cases. - AnnaLovesBooks