2,659,782+ Books Available - 1,555 Members Online
Your source for swapping books online - Read...Swap...Save!
How To Swap Books?
Sign Up
Search 
Kiosk
All Books
Book Browser
Advanced Search
Books Posted Today
Club Wish List
Member Book Reviews
NYT Best Seller List
Login
Community
Member Directory
Discussion Forums
Live Chat (8)
Box-O-Books
Book Journal
Maps
The Eclectic Pen
Fun Stuff
Top 50s
Pulse of PBS
Spread The Word
Photo Gallery
Recipes
Club Tag Cloud
Member Testimonials
Help Center
Kiosk
Need Help?
Search - The Breakdown Lane
|
|
|
||||
Book Description:
From Publishers Weekly
No one could blame Julieanne Gillis, beleaguered heroine of this no-holds-barred family drama by Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean, etc.) for not seeing the signs. At first her lawyer husband, Leo Steiner, seems to be in the throes of a midlife crisis, informing Julieanne that he is planning to take early retirement and go and live on a commune in upstate New York for six months. The next thing she knows, he's vanished, leaving her with three children and only her meager income from her advice column for the Sheboygan, Wis., local newspaper. To make matters worse, she's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The narration alternates between plucky Julieanne and her 15-year-old son, Gabe, a handsome Holden Caulfieldesque loner with a mild learning disability. When things get desperate, Gabe and his 14-year-old sister, Caroline, scan their dad's old e-mails and learn where he might be. Then, during spring break, lying like troopers, the two juveniles take off by bus to find their father. Surely, they think, he'll come home when he learns that their mother is sick. He comes, but the baggage he brings along means further disaster. Leo's behavior is almost campishly craven, but the novel's soap-operatic bathos is perversely satisfying. Rousing melodrama; fluid, often funny, dialogue; and the convincing portrayal of children involved in the collapse of a marriage add up to another page-turner from Mitchard.
No one could blame Julieanne Gillis, beleaguered heroine of this no-holds-barred family drama by Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean, etc.) for not seeing the signs. At first her lawyer husband, Leo Steiner, seems to be in the throes of a midlife crisis, informing Julieanne that he is planning to take early retirement and go and live on a commune in upstate New York for six months. The next thing she knows, he's vanished, leaving her with three children and only her meager income from her advice column for the Sheboygan, Wis., local newspaper. To make matters worse, she's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The narration alternates between plucky Julieanne and her 15-year-old son, Gabe, a handsome Holden Caulfieldesque loner with a mild learning disability. When things get desperate, Gabe and his 14-year-old sister, Caroline, scan their dad's old e-mails and learn where he might be. Then, during spring break, lying like troopers, the two juveniles take off by bus to find their father. Surely, they think, he'll come home when he learns that their mother is sick. He comes, but the baggage he brings along means further disaster. Leo's behavior is almost campishly craven, but the novel's soap-operatic bathos is perversely satisfying. Rousing melodrama; fluid, often funny, dialogue; and the convincing portrayal of children involved in the collapse of a marriage add up to another page-turner from Mitchard.
Members who requested this book also requested:
  |
Similar books to this author and title:
 |  |  |  |
Genres:
Other Versions of this Book: Hardcover, Paperback, Audio Cassette (Unabridged), Audio CD (Unabridged), Audio CD
Top Member Reviews
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
The plot of this book was awesome. I shudder at the amount of profanity, however. It is a great book if you can tolerate the profane.
Rate These Member Reviews
Jennifer W. (I actually picked up this book on the recommendation of--don't laugh!--Stephen King. As one of the ten books he recommended for late summer reads in an issue of Entertainment Weekly Magazine, the premise hooked me.
The book centers around a woman who not only loses her husband to a wacky desire to live a simpler and more-fulfilling life, but has to single-handedly raise two teenagers and a young daughter by herself, all while dealing with her diagnosis of MS.
THE BREAKDOWN LANE is women's fiction at its best. I actually enjoyed the two first-person accounts that make up the book (it's in the form of a journal belonging to the mother and one written by the son). Although it does end up with a rather happily-ever-after ending, this book details life in all its ups and downs--and you'll appreciate being along for the ride.
Hillarious and well-written story of a heartbreaking family disaster.
A look at what real life is when a chronic debilitating disease strikes but love still comes along
Pat G. from FANWOOD, NJ wrote on 3/20/2007...you do get caught up in the heroine's life altho at times you want to shake her!
Naomi J. from POWAY, CA wrote on 11/26/2006...A moving story of the breakdown and rebuilding of a family following the husband's disappearance and wife's illness.
Whitney B. (This book made me so angry and so happy - frustrating but great read!
Debbie S. from EUREKA, CA wrote on 9/7/2006...Julieanne Gillis's family collects catastrophes. Julie is an advice columnist for a local newspaper. She dispenses wisdom to her readers, but somehow missed the signs that something was wrong in her own home.
Julieanne Gillis's family collects them. An advice columnist for a local newspaper, Julie dispenses wisdom to her readers, but somehow missed the signs that something was wrong in her own home. Devoted to being a good mother and keeping her twenty-year marriage fresh and exciting, she is shocked by her husband's surprise announcement that he needs a "sabbatical" from their life together -- and devastated when he disappears, leaving Julie with no funds to raise two teenagers and a small daughter alone. But it is the discovery that Julieanne suffers from a serious illness that truly crumbles her family's foundation -- setting her children on a dangerous, quixotic journey to locate their missing father . . . before it's too late
Emmagene D. from LEROY, AL wrote on 4/20/2006...I enjoy this author and thought this book started out a little slow, but once I got involved in the story I couldn't put it down. One of Mitchard's best.
This is a wonderful book about chronic illness and grief. I am a grief therapist and I found this to be an extraordinary book.