Interesting material. I had problems following all the details, probably because I was listening to it and was not always a captive audience. May try listening to it again.

I liked the book because of the art discussions and a couple of the characters were worth getting to know: Erila and the mother. However, my reservations include the lack of depth of Alessandra. She was not altogether believable: a 14 year old marries a gay man who is in love with her brother. She's in love with a painter only because he has a skill she desires and her clandestine pursuit of him is a challenge. Then although she pretty much has the life she wanted, she tries to kill herself. And later in life she does kill herself because she doesn't want to be too old and sickly before she dies and she no longer gets to do whatever she wants at the convent. The other reason I gave it a 2 was because of the lack of history and including historical figures just for their names without adding to the development of the story.

It was a difficult book to read. Some of the events were quite shocking and may not have been necessary to get the point across.

This is one of my favorite books. The characters have a lot of depth and the story shows how a once somewhat prosperous town can decline.

There were too many inconsistencies (primarily with the happy times) in the book to believe it all really happened. I'm sure she had a tragic life, but the part that was missing is her coming to grips with it. Her and her siblings (as adults) are not living the American dream and I felt like she was trying to convince the reader they are all ok.

The story started off interesting, but then became predictable. It didn't make sense that the mother would put her life at risk when she had such a young daughter in her care. Contrived so the other woman could fit into the story. Plenty of discussion though.