Commonwealth

By: Ann Patchett

Narrated by: Hope Davis

Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

The acclaimed best-selling author - winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize - tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives.

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly - thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her 20s, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.

©2016 Ann Patchett (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Soap opera with less drama

I'm rating this book a 4 start but feel it may be closer to a 3 for me. The writing is excellent, so well written that the story entraps you like a web. The problem for me was that the web was getting too long and drawn out. However, I loved the book within a book feel and the jumping around in time was done perfectly. I never got lost. The downside is that I'm not sure what this book is about. It's about how events (good and bad) change life's course but is where you end up that terrible after all? I wonder if the title is more than just the setting. And most important, I'll spend the next few days pondering the ending. In summary, it's a great book but at times a little slow and left me a bit unsettled. Maybe it is a 4+ rating after all of the above. Book club material without hesitation.

PS - The narration was superb.

Great story

loved it will roecommend to my daughter. understand this was on bygones best seller list

Decent, nothing exceptional

The plot is decent, but it jumps around enough (both in the timeline and between characters) that it's hard to really get to know any one character in the book. It kind of jumps between the 6 kids and over 50ish years, so you end up just getting little pieces of them all at different ages. It would work ok if the kids all stayed close throughout their lives, but it doesn't seem like any of them do, so you're pretty much trying to follow 6 vaguely related people over the course of their lifetimes without really getting to know any of them.

The performance is also just okay. Hope Davis does an ok job for most of it, but all of her voices for the female characters sounded either painfully airy or like a shrill old woman with a cracking voice. It kind of made it hard for me to listen to.

Great narrator but didn't finish

The author is a wonderful writer and the characters are well developed but there isn't enough story to keep me interested. I didn't finish the book. it's kind of dreary, but the narrator is terrific.

An Honest Look at Blended Families

Any additional comments?

If you are looking for a feel-good book, this isn't it. However, I highly recommend it. It's a story about parents, their children, blended families, how they interact, parent visitation schedules, the difficulties of dealing with broken families, etc. The author Ann Patchett did an excellent job of telling a difficult story from a point-of-view that often gets overlooked: the childrens'. Most of the story is told through the eyes of Frannie, the 5th child of the Cousins/Keating blended family. She tells of how the step-siblings came to live with them every summer, how each of the 6 siblings interacted & details of their personalities, how the parents & step-parents handled their own children & their step-children. I am fortunate enough that I can say I can't identify with this story personally as my parents, my husband's parents, & none of our grandparents every went through a divorce or were part of a blended family. However, just the mere fact that I am alive & have friends means that I have heard of someone else's story that resembles Ann Patchett's. It's a sad story that needs to be heard so that we, the friends & family, can better understand our loved ones & extend to them the kind of love they need to best move forward.

Age recommendation: 14 & up (occasional profanity)

On a scale of 1-10 stars, I give it 9.

Couldn't get into the narrator

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I simply didn't like the voices the narrator decided to assign to each character. The women sounded dumb and blonde; every single one of them. I kept waiting for something to really happen, and I can't say I get it.

such a lovely surprise.

this book is a small miracle. i feel so lucky to have happened upon it.

Commonwealth

I loved this book – Ann Patchett weaved the stories of these families together in a compelling and heartwarming fashion. The performance of the audiobook was excellent as well. Would recommend this book to anyone.

A winner

Any additional comments?

Best Ann Patchett book in a long time. Very well done with an excellent reading performance.

Humans adaptin

A family saga covering about 50 years. A divorce and remarriages. The children each adapt in his/her own way. I liked most of the characters. It is a story of human frailty, forgiveness, moving on. Frannie, the youngest seems to be the steady hand. I found the ending startling, abrupt. I guess I wanted more. But it is a realistic ending.