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Book Review of The Mermaid Chair

The Mermaid Chair
The Mermaid Chair
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
Tesstarosa avatar reviewed on + 151 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Jessie Sullivan is learning to live life as an empty nester now that her daughter, Dee, has gone off to school at Vanderbilt. Her psychologist husband, Hugh, has encouraged her see someone to help her deal with the changes in her life but she refuses to do that. Then she gets a call from her mothers best friend that sends her back to help care for her widowed mother despite their estrangement.

Jessies father died when she was nine in a boat explosion. Her mother kept the details of the death from Jessie and her brother, but Jessie snooped and found newspaper clippings that indicated that there was something suspicious about the explosion and that it may have been caused by a pipe that her father was smoking. A pipe that her father would have not been smoking if Jessie hadnt given it to him as a gift. All these years, Jessie has blamed herself.

While on the remote Egret Island, where her mother lives, Jessie has to come to terms with her relationship with her mother and her husband and the choices she has made in her life, both in the past and in the present.

I really enjoyed this book. Sue Monk Kidd does a wonderful job developing the characters and setting the scene. I also found myself very frustrated with Jessie Sullivan she was often too harsh, especially with her mother, and very untrue to herself, especially with regard to her relationship with the novice monk.