Book Review: Little Lovely Things

I just finished the novel Little Lovely Things and am here today to review it for you guys. Little Lovely Things is told from a few different points of view. When the novel begins, Claire, a medical resident is married with two young daughters trying to juggle life. Her husband, Glen, is a teacher and on the morning that this whole story kicks off he is off to work and Claire is taking the kids to drop them off at daycare on her way to work. Not feeling well, Claire does what most working mothers do – she is determined to power through it because there is no time to be sick.

While driving, Claire begins to feel extremely ill. She somehow manages to pull in to a gas station and stumble out of her car to the bathroom. In her daze, she at least remembers to prop the door open so she can see her car which her two daughters are in. The door closes, she passes out. When she awakes her car and daughters are gone.

Because the book is told from multiple perspectives, the readers do know what happened to her daughters, Andrea and Lily. Kidnapped by shunned Travellers (a group of Gypsies) we know what happens to the girls, where they are, etc. But this story takes place over the course of 4 years so there is a lot to cover from Claire’s, Andrea’s, and Moira’s (the woman who kidnapped the girls) perspectives. Also, a man named Jay becomes involved in the story who is of Lakota descent (a Native American tribe) and we read from his point of view as well.

I don’t want to give too much away about the novel, but there is a big sense of intuition throughout the novel. A mother’s intuition that her daughters are out there waiting to be found. Jay senses things in nature and the world – even having dreams and visions at times – since he once trained to be a shaman during another time in his life. Moira is from the Traveller culture which has their own set of traditions, ways of life, etc.

I found the book really interesting and I kept reading because I wanted to see what would happen – would the family get reunited? Would Moira get caught? Would Claire and Glen’s marriage fall apart after the disappearance of their children? Not to mention there must be guilt and resentment within the relationship. Guilt on Claire’s part for being there when her kids were taken. Resentment from Glen that his wife (although not totally her fault since she was violently ill) is responsible for this tragic event.

I will say that Claire’s character really annoyed me at times. I just felt that even if you were violently ill – you wouldn’t leave your kids unattended in a car with the keys in it. I mean, she had enough sense to be able to park and know that she should prop the gas station bathroom door open, but she couldn’t just get sick in the parking lot and call 911 instead? It also annoyed me that once she recovered from being very sick in the hospital she was just kind of useless while her husband and volunteers scrambled around trying to organize search parties, talking to police, reporters, etc. to try to find the girls. I understand that she was so distraught about what happened and was kind of walking around in a daze filled with guilt, but I wanted her to get her butt in gear and go out leading the charge to bring her kids home! Of course, everyone responds to situations differently, but I wanted her to stop being pathetic and show some fight in her!

However, my strong reaction to Claire means that the author did a good job of making me invested in the characters. I think Little Lovely Things is definitely worth a read and it’s a quick one too.