Monday, August 30, 2010

*LEAVING THE WORLD* by Douglas Kennedy


"On the night of her thirteenth birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents: she would never get married, and she would never have children.
But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business. Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane becomes pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise—but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world.
Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obsessive search for some sort of personal redemption. Convinced that she knows more about the case than the police do, she is forced to make a decision—stay hidden or bring to light a shattering truth.
Leaving the World is a riveting portrait of a brilliant woman that reflects the way we live now, of the many routes we follow in the course of a single life, and of the arbitrary nature of destiny. A critically acclaimed international bestseller, it is also a compulsive read and one that speaks volumes about the dilemmas we face in trying to navigate our way through all that fate throws in our path."
*****Rate this book 5/5 would give it higher if I could. I picked this book up and noticed the length, 480 pages, and said to myself, "well it better be good". I started reading, hoping to find a reason to not like it. It was after all a book about a woman written by a man, and I was prepared to not like it. I read this book in 2 sittings! It drew me in and I only put it down to get some sleep for the night. I loved it! Great story, great characters, and I loved the main character, Jane, even though a man wrote her story!

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