Title: The Rest of Her Life
Author: Laura Moriarty
Reading Recommendation: average book, but raises some interesting questions about parenting and about mother/daughter relationships
My Reflection: The opening of The Rest of Her Life immediately captured my attention. Leigh’s teenage daughter, Kara, has an accident and runs over and kills another girl from her high school. Leigh already felt that she and Kara didn’t have the kind of relationship she always wanted, and the accident adds more strain to that. But Leigh is also carrying a lot of baggage from her own childhood. While she wants to do better than her own mother did, she has blind spots to some of her own shortcomings. In particular, she seemed to treat Kara according to how she (Leigh) would like to be treated, not recognizing that Kara is a different person with a different personality with different needs.
At some point the novel’s grip on my attention wanned. But I wanted to see it though because of the time I’d already spent on it, because the characters seemed so real, and because it was my next book club read. At our meeting we had a good discussion about Leigh, parenting, and relationships with children. The discussion was certainly worth the read.
One insight I really liked in the book was near the end when Leigh was packing a box to send to Kara. She didn’t know quite what to put in it, what Kara needed, but remarks that parenting is a lot like that. You do your best and give your kids what you think they need, what they will connect with, and if it isn’t quite right, you try again. As a parent of a toddler, looking at the years stretching out ahead of us, that is both a comforting and daunting thought. Really, there are no guarantees that any “box” you send, no matter how many, is going to be the right one. But a good parent tries and tries and tries some more. The comforting part is knowing that it’s ok if the first try isn’t right–you can keep trying.
