"Imperfect Birds"

Author: Anne Lamott
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2011
Pages: 336
My Rating: Not Recommended

Boring and predictable sums up Anne Lamott's Imperfect Birds.

Synopsis (book jacket): A powerful and redemptive novel of love and family, from the author of the bestselling Blue Shoe, Grace (Eventually), and Operating Instructions. Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences. This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.

Review: Sex, drugs, and more drugs pretty much sums this book up. It's a teenager's perceived control of her life even though she spends most of her days high or thinking about her next high. Her parents, mainly her mother, turn a blind eye and convince themselves that what is going on isn't really happening. I just wanted to yell at them, "she's a child. BE her parents. Set some boundaries, pay attention." This book was difficult for me to read. There wasn't a whole lot going on and the plot remained stagnant throughout, but I think the greater challenge is in knowing that I have two young children to raise and I just hope I'm a better, more in-tune parent than the parents in this book. How this book would end was pretty obvious early on and the author could have spared me a lot of boredom by taking it where it was going about 100 pages sooner.