May be the first time I don't have a shelf for a book (!).
Plot is very interesting, it is very slow-paced, but as it was well written, it was not tedious. If I had to summarize the story it would take me a page and a half maybe. Twins separate at birth, she with Down's Syndrome and he healthy. She raised by the nurse and he by his parents. The decision was made by David, the father and he kept it as secret his whole life. Her wife believed her daughter died.
It questions if things would have been different if the girl, Phoebe, was raised in her family. As things happened, the mother was unhappy, the father was unhappy, the son was unhappy: David was unhappy because he had to keep the burden all by himself, Norah was unhappy because she missed her daughter and could not connect with her husband; Paul was unhappy because he thought his parents demand him more because he was an only son. The book has a very gray atmosphere in my mind, not the Victorian-gray, but the depressing-gray.
Would the Henry family have been happier if Phoebe was with them? Would she not have been a burden for her parents, for her brother? Would they have been closer to each other?
I could not like David at the beginning; he seemed like a robot: methodical, calm. But I ended up understanding him better. On the other hand, Norah was insufferable. Like she did not try to even make her son happy.
Towards the end I was getting restless. I was hoping for the meeting to happen. The secret to come out. Something. Anything. People come and go, things happened - issues related to love, affairs, jobs, health.. everything is vague- but nothing related to the story. So yes, it drags a little bit.
This book has been in my TBR shelf for years. I finally have read it.
