Sheltering Rain

Pick another Jojo Moyes novel. I believe this was an early novel and the author clearly has gotten better over the years. I've read some of her other novels and remember absolutely loving some of the characters and the humor and realistic qualities Moyes created for them. This book started incredibly slow. The first time I picked it up, I put it down after half a chapter. I was halfway through the book (literally) before I noticed the story going somewhere. Up until then, it was a lot of slogging through and I didn't really care about half of what was said. The story itself was good, but there was a lot of unnecessary characters and interactions. There were multiple tangents that I felt could have been erased entirely, like anything about Maggie and the community center, most of Kate in London really, and even some of Joy's history. Not a bad read, but it was rather forgettable and I doubt I'd recommend it.