I am once again slightly disappointed by Sittenfeld's storytelling. She weaves an intricately layered plot, taking the reader back and forth between the past and present for Kate Tucker. Sittenfeld has again created excellent characters, and done a wonderful job of illustrating the relationships among them, in all their variations of friendship, romance, and sibling rivalry.
The story falls flat for me, though. There is a huge amount of buildup surrouding the prediction of a catastrophic earthquake made by Violet, Kate's sister. There is a crazy level of explanation of how Kate used and then discarded her own psychic senses. Yes, Kate suffers through a personal earthquake, but it's one of her own making. There is such intensity leading up to it that I felt let down by Kate's irrational choices.
When the earthquake finally does happen, it's almost an afterthought.
Kate doesn't really have to deal with the consequences of her choices, either. Realistically, I know that things happen the way they did in the book. I didn't get the feeling that Kate took the opportunity to really grow from her experience. She didn't even delve into how she'd deal with it if any of her kids showed signs of having inherited her senses.
I found the ending to be tedious, thus making the rest of it almost pointless. I won't be reading this again, let alone purchasing it for my own collection. I do, however, know others who will like it and will pass the title on to them.
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