Helpful Score: 3
Touching story about a daughter and her enstranged mother. Good read.
Helpful Score: 2
Great characters and beautifully written.
Everything she writes is worth reading.
Everything she writes is worth reading.
Helpful Score: 2
How does she do it? She can get inside people's heads with such accuracy. This story rings true from page one to the end, and it is the kind of read you just can't put down. Forget sleep - read What We Keep!
Helpful Score: 2
In What we keep I found the context both unsettling and sad. This book is different then a mushy romance or a great mystery. This has happened in someones life somewhere.
That shame and pride would and could do this to a family is reality based. I would say that this book is well worth the time and effort it took to read it. I enjoyed it a lot.
That shame and pride would and could do this to a family is reality based. I would say that this book is well worth the time and effort it took to read it. I enjoyed it a lot.
Helpful Score: 2
I love Elizabeth Berg, her novels are always touching and you really get to know the characters.
Helpful Score: 1
Very well written! I loved it!
Helpful Score: 1
This was my first Elizabeth Berg novel. I will be reading all of them. This novel was so good that i can not part with it, I want all my friends to read it first. This was such a moving novel about mother and daughter and old wounds that still aren't healed. I loved this book. It was totaly worth all the time I spent with it.
Helpful Score: 1
A great read. Berg is never dissappointing. This will tug at your heart but will make you feel good & think more of ones relationship with their mother.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a wonderful story.
Helpful Score: 1
Great story. The lives of two sisters which goes back and forth from present day to when they were young teens. very good read
Helpful Score: 1
Once again, Berg keeps it simple yet profound. She is such a great writer. I loved the relationship of Ginny and Sharla; I actually respected their mom for doing what she did. My only complaint about the story was that it wasn't long enough. The end part went way to fast...I wanted to know more!!! Great Read!!
Helpful Score: 1
This was the first book I've read by Elizabeth Berg, but it wont be my last. Excellent read, I read it in one day!
Helpful Score: 1
Good story. Interesting bond and the understanding of a relationship between a daughter and her mother.
Helpful Score: 1
Elizabeth Berg is a well-known author. In What We Keep, she has written an intimate story on the universal themes of family secrets, wounded pasts and gradual resolution.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Helpful Score: 1
A story about two sisters growing up in the 1950s in America. Their mother leaves after meeting a new friend, leaving the girls with heartache and unanswered questions. The bulk of the book is flashbacks interspersed with the thoughts of the younger daughter, now grown, as she goes to visit her mother for the first time in many decades.
Helpful Score: 1
Berg writes "chick books" that my husband even likes--this is a great one to take to the beach!
Helpful Score: 1
I read about 6 chapters and couldn't get involved in it.
WOW...I just finished reading this book, which was my first by Elizabeth Berg; I absolutely loved it! She is an exceptional writer and kept my interest throughout the book from page 1. The characters are so believable, and I found myself getting so involved in this book that even if I had only two or three minutes to spare, I picked it up to read because I wanted to know what happened - the hows and the whys and the effect it had on everyone involved. Berg is one of my favorite authors now, and I can't wait to pick up another book she has written. The title "What We Keep" is perfect for this book, and it's amazing and mysterious to recapture moments in our own lives to discover what we have kept, consciously or subconsciously, throughout our lives. Take time to read this book - you won't be disappointed.
I found this book interesting in its juxtaposition of the main character as an adult (going to meet the mother she'd not seen in 35 years) and child (at age 12, when her life took a huge turn). Both points of view were written with great insight and empathy, and the story unfolding was poignant and thoughtful. A story about growing up and love, worth reading.
well developed characters as usual from E. Berg
Berg did it again. Consistently writes great reads.
What a great read!
A beautifully written story about the threads mothers weave through their children's lives, the painful, joyful and lasting.
Berg creates very real characters in this quick read. A very compelling story. One of the best I've read in a long time.
This is a fine read. As the story progressed I found myself spending more and more time reading it and was a little sad it ended. Very good characterization and equally outstanding writing. I highly recommend it.
Finally,a book that I did not like! This whole book was leading up to the last few pages,and then what a let down everything was! This whole thing was like a therapy session on why you felt like your mother ruined your life. It was interestingly written,or I would have just put it down sooner. But I really can't recommend it, although someone must have recommended it to me!
good read!
love this author, this one reads very quick, but i did not find it as emotionally moving as some of her others. however, the story itself is very absorbing.
Very quick read, memoir explores complex relationship between two sisters and their mother. Story set in what is a very acurate and nostalgic depiction of childhood in the fifties and early 60's.
Great read !!!
Great read !!!
Another sad book from Berg! (previously read and reviewed Range of Motion) I love how this book was told in present about happenings in the past....the demise of a seemingly perfect home in 1958. The mothers' character was amazing in the 50's with all her quirky ways of parenting. However, the story never explained the mothers point of view as to why she left.
What We Keep is about ties that are buried but not broken, wounds that are dressed but never heal, and love that changes form but somehow survives.
Great characters and beautifully written.
Everything she writes is worth reading.
Everything she writes is worth reading.
Great characters and beautiful writing.
Classic Elizabeth Berg-- very relational, emotional, captivating. I adored this novel, which felt more like a movie than a book, as the characters and story come alive in the way that very few talented novelists can pull off. Excellent "chick lit", although I think everyone would enjoy this novel.
This is about family ties that may be buried but not broken, wounds that are dressed but not healed and love that changes but somehow survives, seen through the eyes of a 12 year-old girl and herself, later, as an adult.
very good
What We Keep is about ties that are buried but not broken, wounds that are dressed but never heal, and love that changes form but somehow survives...Ginny Young crosses the country for a reluctant reunion with the mother she has not seen in 35 years. During the long hours of her flight, she returns in memory to the summer when she turned 12 and her family turned inside out...Berg's tender depiction of a young girl's view of the world is uncanny and gives this story its heart. She captures perfectly what it was like to grow up in the 50s, presenting it like a long-forgotten, but still sharp photograph....What We Keep will touch you. It will allow you, for a few hours, to see the world through the eyes of a 12-year-old and feel in your adult heart the stubborn endurance of love.
Also wrote "Joy School". "What We Keep" is about sisters and mothers -- the past and present.
beautiffuly written
great author
great author
A wonderful book !!! Elizabeth Berg keeps 'em coming !!!
Okay but ending very typical and not realistic. All works out too well and pat.
Author does a good job of depicting what it was like to grow up in the '50s. A wouman in her 40's is traveling to see the mother she has not seen in 35 years and while on the airplane she travels the road of her own memories. Well written, realistic about the mother and daughter and sister to sister relationships, weaves in the levels of unspoken secrets a family can keep. Moves forward so well it was hard to put down.
I thought this would be better than it actually was.
Really enjoyed it.
The storyline of this book never really got going in my opinion. It was an easy read, well written with great character building. The actual plot just never really grabbed my attention. While to story was about mothers and daughters, the daughter was in elementary school and the book was mostly her story.
This book had a lot of strange twists and turns in it and a very surprise ending, but all in all, a good read.
A woman prepares to meet with her mother, estranged for 35 years, and thinks back to the year everything changed for their family. It's an honest and sad book about mothers and daughters, and truth and lies, and finding the strength to do what must be done to survive.
Ginny Young crosses the country for a reluctant reunion with the mother she has not seen in thirty-five years. During the long hours of her flight, she returns in memory to the summer when she turned twelve and her family turned inside out...What We Keep is about ties that are buried but not broken, wounds that are dressed but never heal, and love that changes form but somehow survives.
I had two of this book and have not finished it but it is Beautifully written and touching. I read "Open House" by Berg and loved it.
