Family Drama

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of family dramas, so I went into this debut with high expectations.It centers around Susan, a soap opera star who becomes a wife and eventually a mother of twins, Viola and Sebastian. In multiple timelines, it shows her struggles to balance work and family: her husband refuses to move to the West Coast, so she jet-sets between coasts and between her two lives. When Susan passes away, her young twins are left in the dark about their famous mother; their father tries to ensure they remain unaware, almost as if he is erasing her.Fast forward several years, and we see the difference in how the twins approach their grief and curiosity about their childhood and their elusive memories of their mother.At first, I wanted more drama. But then, when the twins started seeking out answers and dealing with psychological and emotional repercussions, I became invested. It really hit me when Viola met one of her mother’s costars and became entangled with him. Although she wanted to know about her mother, when he makes a comment about her father, she thinks, 'he cannot claim my father too.' This book has many moments like this that will cause you to slow down and let it sink in.🎧 The narrators, Ali Andre Ali, Lisa Flanagan, and Angus King, really solidified this story for me. Hearing the characters helped with the shifting timelines, and I felt I could better hear their emotions. It was a great way to experience this thought-provoking story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for gifting me a digital ARC of the debut novel by Rebecca Fallon. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4 stars!It’s 1997, and two 7-year-olds watch as their mother's body is tipped overboard in a Viking funeral. A confusing and apt send off for soap opera star Susan Bliss. We go back in time 15 years, to when Susan meets Alcott, and her double life begins. She struggles with the transition to New England wife and mother and the glitzy lights of LA. In the present, Susan's twins still struggle with the loss of their mother in different ways.This is a sharp, beautifully written debut that intertwines timelines to explore and magnify the different forms of ourselves that we share with others and keep private. I felt for Susan, even while I didn't condone her decisions, because she was raised in a time where women were supposed to be able to have it all. But can we? What gets sacrificed in the mix? Al was harder for me to understand, because he kept Susan's other world away from the twins, even as they were adults, so that they weren't able to properly process their loss or the true nature of their mother. I'm looking forward to more from this author.

I was initially drawn to this novel by the beautiful, nostalgic cover art and comps to Ann Napolitano, whose writing I love. But what I found in this debut was a unique, fresh voice that deftly navigated multiple timelines and eras. Even though it is something of a sweeping story, the reading experience felt intimate because of the detailed characterization and beautiful writing. This is a very strong debut that I think a lot of people will like, and I look forward to reading anything Rebecca Fallon publishes next.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3 starsTwins Viola and Sebastian’s mother, a glamorous soap opera star, has passed away. As they grow up, they struggle to understand who she was and are left to uncover the truth about her life.The story was emotional and, at times, heartbreaking—not exactly what I expected, but definitely interesting. Some parts felt a little strange, while others were deeply moving. It’s a story that calls for reflection, exploring the struggles children face after losing a parent and how those challenges can manifest differently in their lives.The book jumps between timelines a lot. It recounts Susan’s funeral, her early life and career in the 1980s, the birth of the twins, their youth in the 1990s, her illness and death, as well as the twins’ adult lives in the 2000s. I think the timeline jumps would be fun to see on screen, but on the page, they were a little jarring at times. After so many jumps, the ending came quickly and left me wanting more.Overall, it was a decent debut that explored women’s struggles to balance family and career, delved into family dynamics, and revealed how a parent’s premature death can have lasting repercussions. I’m definitely open to read more from this author in the future.3.5⭐️⭐️⭐️💫Read if you like:🎭Soap opera stars🎭Career and motherhood🎭Alternate timelines🎭Family drama🎭Twin dynamics/differences⚠️CW: Death of a parent, grief.

A talented actress, living a bicoastal life, dies and leaves behind her young twins. The story is told in alternating timelines, which, for this reader, did not work. The transitions between plotlines, timelines, and points of view were at times confusing and jarring. The narrative was free-flowing, almost rambling, and hard to follow. The premise was just great--I so wanted to love this one--but the execution did not do the plot justice. Where was the editor? I gave it my best shot, but finally DNF'd at 50%.