November 3, 2008
Bestseller Flock's downer latest takes a glimpse inside a dysfunctional and affluent Chicago family. Samantha Friedman is an unhappy stay-at-home mother of three and wife to her distant and despondent husband, Bob. Their adopted 17-year-old daughter, Cammy, as unhappy as her mother, has found goth, drugs and sex. The unhappy flailings of the two provide the narrative momentum; Cammy's mopey journals (which include, for better or for worse, her poetry) document her pain and reckless behavior, and Samantha's narration explores her affair with a married man. When Cammy learns the truth about her birth mother and the circumstances of her adoption, she sinks further into despair, and Samantha attempts to connect with her while teetering on the brink of abandoning her marriage. Flock's plot is heavy on the sorrow, though there's a requisitely redemptive ending to lighten the familiar and melancholy arc.