R E K. (bigstone) - , reviewed on 7/25/2020 + 1438 more book reviews

Ordinary People focuses on a family that loses its oldest son in accident and the younger son and parents must move on. The reader finds a family reeling from loss. Almost all events take place within the characters' thoughts and emotions and in their interactions with one another. The reader experiences with the family's rage, confusion, sorrow, guilt, and other emotions as they work through their loss.

Told by the father, Cal, and his son, Conrad, the story focuses primarily on Conrad who suffers depression following the drowning death of his older brother, Buck, and attempts suicide to join him. While the parents are divided on how to deal with their grief, Conrad wants to talk about it. As he tries to discuss his feeling and his brother his mother doesn't understand and wants to forget what happened.

While this is the author's first book, it seems so real that the reader realizes that she must have experienced grief for herself. Thus as she takes the reader through how a family deals with the consequences of a real-life tragedy, one begins to visualize what the future may hold. Nevertheless, such events, the author suggests, change people forever.

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