White Picket Fences

After a nomadic lifestyle with her father, Tally thinks her Aunt Amanda's home and family are like a dream come true but soon discovers that all is not as it seems on the surface. Working together to interview survivors of the Treblinka concentration camp for a school project, Chase and Tally become friends and confidants. While Chase grapples with the haunting dreams of a devastating fire that came close to claiming his life as a small child, his parents struggle to keep their marriage together as their secrets push them apart. White Picket Fences is a multi-layered narrative with several simultaneous plot lines as well as a story from the past. This book is a frank look at how a home that looks perfect on the exterior can actually hide the painful secrets and troubled lives of its inhabitants. An emotionally charged essay about a family in crisis, White Picket Fences illustrates the impact past events can have on the present, the danger of keeping secrets, and the serious consequences that can result when a parent withdraws from a child. White Picket Fences is a well written book that has a few surprises and neatly ties up all the sub-plots by its end. A review copy of this book was provided by the WaterBrook Multnomah Blogging for Books program.

Wow! I totally recommended this book to a friend who enjoys holocaust novels. This book could be very healing for someone dealing with repressed memories and a troubled past. All the story lines tied in exceptionally well and made the story shine and become so much more memorable than I expected. Thank you Susan Meissner for creating a winning read that I will continue to recommend to others.

Susan Meissner's new book White Picket Fences is one of the better books I've read in a long time. I find myself thinking about it over a week after I finished it . . . and when I read the last chapter, it actually brought me to tears. Not the one drop falling down your cheek kind of cry, but a "good cry" that lasted several minutes. White Picket Fences is the story of a seemingly perfect family . . . which is anything but perfect. The members of this family have to learn to trust each other with their secrets, their feelings, their fears. The secondary theme of this book is the Holocaust -- the teens of this book interview two survivors of a concentration camp as a school project and unearth yet another family secret. Since this is the second Meissner book I've read and really enjoyed, I even bookmarked her web page to my "favorite authors" page. I strongly recommend this book.

A white picket fence... the perfect look of a family... Except when secrets are being held. This was such an intriguing book that showed secrets of past & present & how they effect a person - & a whole family. How it weaved in the story of the Holocaust & applied it in the story of today was wonderfully written. The men from the nursing home who told their story was so endearing too. It was also so interesting to see how a family who seems perfect has secrets that can tear each other apart... even avoiding & burying secrets does nothing. A very powerful book... I completely enjoyed this book. It was the first one by Susan Meissner I had read, but will be checking more out about this author.

This is the first book where I have to pause before I can pick up another. White Picket Fences is the story of a seemingly perfect family with secrets simmering beneath the surface. It blends the past and present in an emotionally intense story, and somehow this connected with me on a deep level. I really didn't think I could enjoy a Susan Meissner story more than The Shape of Mercy, but wow. That's all I can say--wow.