Something Better, Diane Parrish
Nineteen-year-old Annabeth Brady is suddenly an orphan. How did such a thing happen? Well, on a snowy night, traveling home after a party, her parents were distracted and involved in an animated conversation. Annabeth’s dad lost control of the car. That is how it happened. Already disappointed at college, because she was not a top member of her track team, devastated and suddenly alone, she left school and traveled to her parents home in Connecticut, to an uncertain future. When she left for college her parents moved there from Kansas, believing that they were all moving on into their own happy future lives. Now, unbelievably, only Annabeth had a future.
David Crawford, a neighbor, had spied the wreck containing the bodies of her parents. He had called for help, but it had come too late. Although it was impossible to know, he was tortured by the idea that if he had seen their car sooner, they might still be alive. He offered to help Annabeth around the house and to fix the garden her parents had tended. It was overgrown, and he could make the necessary repairs. He was a self-trained landscape artist. This was the beginning of a tortured existence for David, as he experienced previously unknown emotions. At this same time, his wife Ruth was offered a wonderful job opportunity, too good to turn down, and so she was forced to leave him and travel to California for undetermined lengths of time. All of these changes consumed them and led to unforeseen consequences.
It is true that trauma is unplanned. Tragedy strikes everyone unawares. Violence is totally unexpected. Change is often unexplained, even positive change, and adjusting to it is difficult. How we react to all of the above is subtly and almost effortlessly explored by this author. The sudden shock, the disbelief, the grief, the excitement, the hidden emotions kept secret, the feelings of helplessness and weakness, joy or sadness, the need to understand what happened, good or bad and the need to forgive or appreciate all involved are some of the themes raised. Why did it happen, do we need strength, faith, power, self confidence, independence, or all of the above? With tragedy, how do we deal with the uncontrollable personality changes, the explosion of sudden tears when least expected or wanted, the feeling of being loved and unloved, worthy and worthless, useful and useless, and finally the ability to let go of the pain, in order to accept change and the challenge of going forward into uncertainty? With positive change, how do we deal with our success when it causes someone else’s failure or loneliness? Does there always seem to be something better waiting for us? Is that something always better? These are some of the questions that this book opens up for discussion.
With a light hand, using both a serious and humorous tone, merging both sides of the coin deftly, Diana Parish has written a book that is so very readable, yet it does not exploit politics, woke theory or erotic sex. How unusual today, and yet how marvelous! We watch each character deal with some kind of loss, pressure, change, or trauma. Some deal with their challenges better than others. Janet, Bernard, Sarah, Maeve, Brian, Sid and Theo, minor characters, use different ways to deal with life, but each approach is important and adds to the novel. Even toddler Hannah and the dog Chip, with their unconditional love, draw us happily into this book.
Although each character takes a different approach and each moves ahead in a different direction, the reader will see the results of their choices and determine whether or not they believe it was the right choice. The reader will be sad when the book ends and will hope for a sequel to follow them into the future. They feel real and authentic. So, what might have seemed, at first sight, to be a book that was simply a beach read, with contrived romantic themes, is so much more. It deserves a broad audience as it explores and illustrates the depth of human reactions, and the real issues of life. Would some characters rise to the occasion or would some sink to the depths of despair and become part of the problem and not the solution? Which characters had the better approach? I highly recommend this book for anyone, but especially for book groups that engage in the meaningful discussions that this book will inspire.