Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Amy    

fiction

Ask Again, Yes is the story of two families who were linked by home country, the two dads’ police careers, and the fact that they became neighbors. The two families were very different, one of the parents had some undiagnosed mental issues, and the boy from one family became very close friends with one of the girls in the other family.  Then, when those two kids were 14, tragedy struck and one of the families moved away. Yet, the kids never forgot each other.

This novel focused on what could go wrong with children when there is a lack of family communication, a lack of action being taking to combat (or, for that matter, even recognize) mental illness and alcoholism, a lack of parental responsibility, and a lack of constructive guidance or support.  Even with all those issues present, the kids did not turn out as badly as they could have. Still, as the story progressed, it was painfully obvious that these families, especially Peter himself, needed counseling and social workers looking out for them.  The families did the best they could with their limited resources but that mostly involved ignoring the problems and soldiering on in solitude. I believe this was largely due to the times and lack of financial resources.

It was sad to read. Parental neglect and lack of support are really upsetting to me. It makes me angry.  Peter’s uncle did his best for Peter but he didn’t have enough resources or experience. It has a hopeful ending, thankfully.  But, this type of heavy novel doesn’t bring me enjoyment. There were so many characters making poor choices. Also, Mary Beth Keane's writing jumped around from one character’s head to the other’s without much warning.  It added stress to my audiobook experience. This is a book club book and I’m sure there will be some good discussion around the issues raised, at least.

The narrator, Molly Pope, bugged me—especially at the beginning. She moved through the introduction so quickly (and this was probably also the author’s fault) that I kept losing track of who she was talking about. Also, when not voice acting as one of the characters, her “narrator” voice was clipped and unemotional.  Again, perhaps part of this is the writing. Narration that is too fast or too slow are problematic and it takes a high-quality narrator to understand where the area inbetween is located. Since her narration bugged me enough to make me consider it, I’d normally give her a B-. Although, since I suspect part of the problem was the writing, I’ll bump her up to a solid B. When she was speaking as one of the characters she was not bad. Sadly, too much of the story was straight narration.