by Jojo Moyes

This is the story of a family who didn’t fit in. A little girl who was a bit geeky and liked maths more than makeup. And a boy who liked makeup and didn’t fit into any tribes.

“I worked it all out in the bath. I’ve been blathering to the kids all these years about how if you look out for people and do the right thing it will all be okay. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Do the right thing. Somehow the universe will see you right. Well, it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? Nobody else thinks that way.”

Needless to say, this was well-written. The plot was engaging and kept me in a state of suspense and anticipation. Truthfully, even dread at a few points. But that was because I really cared about the characters and I knew that all would not go smoothly for them before what I expected to be a happy ending, with good rewarded and bad punished. At a certain point, I thought the worst had happened, and I relaxed and just enjoyed the wonderful characters, the humor, and how they dealt with their challenges. And even though bad things kept happening (contemptible Marty! The Fishers!), I was OK with it, because everything else was so good, and sometimes it’s worse waiting for the bad than actually being in the middle of it. The story is told from the perspectives of the 4 protagonists.

Jess is a bravely optimistic single mother with a strong moral compass and who is always determined to do the right thing.

She seemed to bounce through life like Tigger; the things that would have felled most people didn’t seem to touch her. Or if she did fall, she bounced right back. She fell again, plastered on a smile, dusted herself down and kept going

She has been abandoned by her useless husband Marty who is living with his mother and dealing with depression. She is fine with that and doesn’t bother him for money or the support she is owed because she knows about depression and that he is jobless anyway. She is caring for Nicky, his 17-year-old son with a drug addict mother, and her own child with him, 10-year-old Tanzie. Nicky is somewhat of a misfit of the goth variety and doesn’t fit in at school, or anywhere really except perhaps in his online gaming community. Tanzie is fine socially and at school. We suspect that Nicky is pretty smart, but we know Tanzie is. She has just been offered a scholarship to an elite school in which she will thrive by virtue of her genius for Math. The scholarship will cover 90% of her tuition, and they really want her. Unfortunately, Jess, who works two jobs just to not keep up with basic expenses can’t even afford to pay the 10% difference. The family is desperate for Tanzie to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity both because of what it will mean for her future, and out of fear of the neighborhood school she will have to go to if she can’t get in. Nicky is being cruelly victimized by some of the locals who go there and they already have their eye on Tanzie. There is a lot at stake, but there is hope. Jess learns of a Math Olympiad with a prize of 15,000 pounds for the winner. It will cover Tanzie’s tuition for a year and Jess knows that if she can just get Tanzie to Aberdeen Scotland to compete, victory and the prize money are in the bag.

Meanwhile, we meet Ed, whom Jess cleans house for. He is a tech wizard who has made a fortune with his company. He is socially awkward and somewhat of a geek, although pretty good-looking now that he can afford to be. I love an unconventional hero. He has his own problems having inadvertently got caught up in an insider trading scheme. He is possibly facing prison and the bad publicity when it all comes out threatens to tank his company. He needs to get out of the public eye and get out of town. Through a series of unlikely events, the four join forces to get Tanzie to Scotland to win the 15,000 pound prize.

Their adventures on the road are by turns comical, heart-tugging, suspenseful, and even shocking. I was all in and loved Jess and her little family. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about my feelings for Ed, with whom the kids bond with and with whom Jess falls in love. It was a shame really because in many ways, he was a sympathetic, even admirable, and lovable character at times who grows quite a bit in the course of the novel. But I could not forgive his behavior towards his dying father, his mother, and his sister (another great character). He refuses to visit them, fighting his sister all the way, for over half the book. His excuse is that he is trying to protect them from the impending scandal of his trial. But I didn’t buy this seemingly reasonable excuse. He was just cowardly and embarrassed. It was a relief when he finally saw the light and made things right in that regard.

Because in that one moment, Ed Nicholls saw that he had been more like Marty than he was like Jess. He had been that coward who spent his life running from things rather than facing up to them. And that had to change.

But his mother’s and father’s hearts had already been broken again and again and his sister enraged by his selfishness.
All was forgiven, but for me, it was too little too late. Some things cannot be fixed by an apology. And no sooner than I get over that, he turns on Jess and the kids. Yes, Jess screws up and, for once, does something she knows is wrong. But in the same way that Jean Valjean was wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew and sister. Despite the fact that it all came right at the end, I just felt so much hostility towards Ed for his attitude and behavior that it almost ruined the book for me. But you know, if Jess is happy, then I’m happy.

Come to think of it, the same thing happened with a main character in the other Jojo Moyes book I read. She made me hate a character only to have a character I loved just forgive them. Does she do that with every book? No matter. The book was saved by the wonderfulness of all of the rest of the characters, the bravest and bestest dog in the world, and “the kindness of strangers.”