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By Lynn · 1 post · 41 views
By Lynn · 1 post · 41 views
last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM
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I loved this book in so many ways. The novel spans fifty years. A couple marries, they have four children and who they become is a combination of each child's nature and their birth order and the way which their parents and their siblings welcomed them/or didn't. It's an ambitious book, each child gets a chapter in which they are the center of consciousness. Not all of the characters are likable, but they felt three dimensional to me, and understandable in certain ways.
One character's therapist ...more
One character's therapist ...more
Really 3.5
Bill and Penny meet after his return from service as an Army doctor in the Korean War. Their marriage seems based on mutual need to escape something - Bill, his horrible memories of what war does to human bodies and minds, Penny from a boring life - that they are misreading as love. Things go downhill from there, and we soon are plunged into their life as parents of four children. Children are Bill's refuge and Penny's prison. Dysfunction ensues.
The book as structured as alternating th ...more
Bill and Penny meet after his return from service as an Army doctor in the Korean War. Their marriage seems based on mutual need to escape something - Bill, his horrible memories of what war does to human bodies and minds, Penny from a boring life - that they are misreading as love. Things go downhill from there, and we soon are plunged into their life as parents of four children. Children are Bill's refuge and Penny's prison. Dysfunction ensues.
The book as structured as alternating th ...more
Ann Packer's "The Dive From Clausen's Pier" is one of those books that has stuck with me over the years. So when this came up on my audible feed, I downloaded it. At first, I wasn't sure that I was going to like it much. The crusade of the title is originally about the four Blair children trying to find a way to engage their mother in the life of the family. Dad Bill is a pediatrician who adores all four of his children and appears to have infinite patience with each of them. Mom Penny checks ou
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Wow. I've avoided Packer's work up until now, mostly because The Dive From Clausen's Pier sounded, well, a bit drippy, but this multi-voiced novel, about four children growing up in the '60's & '70's, their adult lives during the dot com boom, and their very complicated parents, just blew me away. Listened on audiobook, but am buying 2 print copies, one for me to study her writing (it's already resolved something very small that I've been struggling with in my novel) and one to send to one of my
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Feb 03, 2015
Renata
marked it as to-read
Feb 06, 2015
Debbie
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Mar 31, 2015
Patty
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Natalya
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Apr 24, 2015
Susan
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Apr 29, 2015
Lisa Thomas
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May 05, 2015
Hillary
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May 09, 2015
Wendy
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Aug 14, 2015
Ruth
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May 03, 2017
Sheila
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Dec 10, 2017
Sherry
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Dec 08, 2017
Jean
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Dec 08, 2017
Robert
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Dec 11, 2017
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Mar 13, 2018
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Jan 19, 2020
Aimee
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