The Peacock Emporium

I enjoyed this CD as I drove to and from work. I laughed out loud and cried real tears. Suzanna is Almost forty and not happy with her life or her marraige. She opens the Emporium in an attempt to fulfill her life. Suzanna, the abandoned daughter of her fathers first wife feels responsible for her mothers death among other dissatifactions. Through the shop, she makes friends with Jesse and others who help her become herself. She finds the truth of her abandonment from Vivi, her "stepmom". All the characters are as real as your own Grandma Rose who needs a nursing home but you can't do that to family. I usually read horror, but this has the real life horrors and real life pleasures that kept me enrapt to this wonderful book. The ending is perfect and the mid-book trauma with Jesse is heart wrenching.

The Peacock Emporium was an excellent story. Jojo Moyes shows immense skill in exploring several characters. The book seems to depict many characters at first but ultimately is the story of Suzanna whose story is poignant and touching without being overly sentimental. The use of flashbacks and alternate points of view is masterful and Jojo Moyes uses a writing style that depicts these scenes in a simple and uncomplicated manner without over explaining herself to the reader. We randomly receive flashbacks to unknown character's journeys and it is only later that the pieces of the puzzle fall together and we come to realise these are in fact central characters in Suzanna's life. The heartwrenching story of Jessie, A bright spark in Suzanna's bleak life is excellent. The story of the insecure young woman who dreams big but eventually settles for an average existence is great and it is very cleverly written teaching any reader a valuable lesson about walking in someone else's shoes, but perhaps the most exciting subplot is that of the beautiful, spirited Athena and the effect she continues to hold over all the characters lives. The ending is perfect. After reading this book I was immediately overwhelmed by the vast significance of the ending and the way in which no single character is aware of all the Implications of the events of the book. After the initial emotions of finishing the novel this book has definitely stayed with me and thinking of it gives me a feeling of the amazing significance of the lives of people around me, it will remind you of the scope of each and every life that you never got to know. This book is definitely a worthwhile read, although it is clearly written as one for the girls with it's soap opera like plot detail.