Sunday’s On The Phone To Monday

Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday by Christine Reilly

Fiction – Contemporary

Published April 5th 2016 by Touchstone

 

 

 

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I liked it but it just never had that spark that made me feel connected with the characters in the face of their tragedies. I more felt like I was on the outside looking in, never really caring at all for them.

 

So What’s It About

Claudio and Mathilde meet at a party in 1988 as hopelessly romantic bohemians and wake up to find themselves in the suburbs raising 3 daughters. The first chunk of this book focuses on their story: their childhoods, how they met, how they fell in love, and the life they build together. Mathilde continues acting and Claudio fulfills his dream of owning a record store. The second part of the books focuses on their family lives and the lives of their three daughters – overachieving Natasha, creative Lucy dealing with her heart condition, and their adopted daughter Carly whose curiosity gets the better of her in most cases. As the girls all deal with the ups and downs of young adulthood, Claudio and Mathilde deal with Claudio moving his troubled sister from her life in Louisiana to a mental hospital in New York.

 

Thoughts

I don’t really know where to start with this. I really liked the voice of this book and it was very pretty to read but I never actually connected to their characters. It always felt like some magical story in a faraway land that I was never meant to be a part of.

What I did like

• The alternating POVs between the three daughters and the parents and even the aunt at times were great to really show the different moments that were important to them and how they overlap within the family. On that note, I really liked how the moments that were important to one person was not even on the radar for someone else. It felt realistic to families and I loved that. 
• The authors writing style was so pretty. That’s probably the most awful description ever and you’re probably sitting there going, “that’s dumb, how is it pretty?” It was just so different and very lyrical without being in-your-face I’m trying to different please listen to me.
• I also thought the look on mental-illness and it’s strains on a family relationship that was already strained was really interesting and done well.
• OMIGOSH I loved the uncle and am convinced that my need to finish the book was mostly due to having to make sure he had his happy ending
• I loved the relationship between the three daughters. They loved each other fiercely but they still had their own lives even though they were each other’s best friends.

What’s crazy to me is I have this long list of things I love and nothing that I really disliked at all. Something just didn’t click with me to make me love it.

 

Quotes

“Claudio could divide his life into before fatherhood and after fatherhood. Before he was a father, Claudio swore that there was nothing he could love more than rock and roll. And then he had his daughters, and it wasn’t even that he loved them more than rock and roll. It was that they were rock and roll.”

“James used to call Jane Lolita as a joke. You weren’t supposed to use art that way.”

 

Re-Read?

Probably not, but it is one I would recommend to anyone because I think that if it clicks for you it could be great. The book is filled with hidden gems and I would probably read anything this author wrote in the future.