Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

While I definitely use books as an escape from the everyday, one of my favourite categories of fiction is realistic multi-generational family dramas, which is why I loved Ask Again, Yes.

Early on, we're introduced to Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, two rookie police officers who end up neighbours. Francis' wife, Lena, is extremely outgoing and wants nothing more than to meet people and open up her home and expand her social life, but she soon discovers after a few eager attempts that Brian's wife, Anne, wasn't at all receptive to her friendship.

Both couples go on to have families of their own and, as kids tend to do, two of the neighbours' kids, Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, form an early bond and become best friends. They both have vastly different childhoods. They grow up side by side, but their home lives couldn't be more different. Through each of their families' ups and downs, Kate and Peter lean on and fully trust each other. They become inseparable.

Suddenly, one night when Kate and Peter are in the eighth grade, a shocking event takes place that will forever affect both families. This single event blows the novel apart and the course of its trajectory becomes completely unpredictable.

Mary Beth Keane's talent as a writer is her ability to capture the subtleties of daily life that gradually change people as time passes. These small subtleties create small ripples over the days, months and years that cause the characters and the reader to form new perspectives of each other, just as they do in real life. If you think you know the characters well at the beginning of the book, prepare to keep an open mind. Relationships morph and change in ways you could never predict. Characters reflect deeply on their current circumstances as well as their home lives and how they were raised. The choices they make are influenced by their families, by others' expectations of them and by their own introspection about how they got to where they ended up and where they want to be in life.

The unpredictability, the character development and the plotlines of this novel moved me equally across this sweeping novel. I usually rush through novels, but I took the time to savour this one and really let everything sink in, which made for an extremely satisfying read. There was a lot going on. It was a good reminder that it can be a good thing to slow down once in a while and let the plot settle in a little before moving onto the next great book.

Judge the cover: 4/5