The Blessings

As an Irish catholic from the northeast this story brought back so many great memories and reminded me that your family forms you and if you have a good one you have all you will ever need.

a beautiful web of ordinary an ordinary family. love, love, loved it!

I was fortunate enough to receive an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of "The Blessings" by Elise Juska. I devoured this book quickly, and am eager to pass it on to my mom, a bibliophile like me, who is the lucky recipient of books I have loved.The Blessings are a large Irish-American family from Philadelphia. They are your stereotypical big family, with aunts and uncles and large gatherings. During family events or dinners, the men gather around the television watching sports, while the women gather in the kitchen, talking about neighbors and friends and the latest gossip.What makes "The Blessings" such an enjoyable novel, though, is Juska's brilliant descriptive writing and the multiple points of view that are presented. Each chapter comes from the perspective of a different member of the Blessing family. There is genius in this, in that the reader not only gets an intimate look at each character's thoughts, but also builds empathy and emotional attachments to each one within the course of a single chapter.The novel encompasses a couple decades, starting with Abby, a freshman in college experiencing the world outside of her close-knit family for the first time, and ending later on with Elena, a young college graduate who has looked up to Abby and is now on her own to experience the world as well. Through the years, the Blessings face the loss of one of their own to cancer, the decline into senility and eventual death of the matriarch, divorce, bulimia, troubled young men, and the temptation of infidelity. While all these themes might normally be too heavy a burden for lesser novels to encompass at once, Juska's presentation as glimpses into different character's viewpoints makes the transition between each event seamless. The vignettes of each character and how they perceive each circumstance allows the book to flow easily through the years. Certain flashbacks enable the reader to see a situation from various point of view, and how each has affected multiple member of the family in one way or another. I was left cheering for this family and feeling as though I was tied to them through the heartstrings that Juska wove in this novel. It is splendid in its telling. Her descriptive writing is not heavy, making for light yet deeply penetrating reading. I highly recommend this book, especially as a solid summer read.

"Everything changed, yet everything stayed the same."

Loved this book. Structured a little differently from most, but a really nice read. The author made me realize that I'm not as observant as I could be.

The intricacy of an extended family and the effects that the behavior of each has on the whole has rarely been woven into such a rich tapestry.

This is a great read and a feast of food for thought, with nary a preachy word.

Excellent books about 3 generations of the Blessings family of Philadelphia.

Loved this book.

Engaging, touching story of a large, extended Irish family in Philadelphia.

Well written and interesting, but so depressing. Nothing redeeming or happy happens to this family for 300 pages. Not what I was looking for in a summer read.

The Blessings is a story of an extended family living in Philadelphia. Each chapter is written from the point of view of a different member of the close-knit Catholic family. It was a quick and easy read for me, although it was not one I found particularly enjoyable. I was initially drawn to the book because I grew up in Philadelphia, but the novel did not evoke any sense of place for me. I also found that I couldn't relate to the many characters, nor to the problems they faced. The only real tension I felt during the book occurred early on when young Stephen injures an old man while participating in a petty crime. The incident is dropped, however, after Stephen's chapter, with no real resolution. There is another chapter later in the book, where it is implied that a young wife is not really suited to life as a stay-at-home mom and hints at getting an abortion. The thought is quickly abandoned; it's too extreme for a Catholic family. But I wondered why the woman simply didn't think of something less radical, like getting a babysitter. When Grandpa dies in the middle of the night, everyone is awakened by a phone call and trudges over to his house at 2 AM with all of their children, pajamas and all. Years later, when Grandma falls after midnight , all of the siblings and their spouses and some of their children rush over to see if she's okay. Does that kind of thing really happen? I understand that Elise Juske's theme is the importance of a large, close family, but I found bits of this silly rather than inspiring.

The Blessings is a good, fast paced novel. Each chapter is a moment in time for each member of a huge family. It's very true to life in that it conveys that you never know what goes on behind closed doors. There is no such thing as a perfect family. The Blessings seem like very real people. It kind of felt like MY family which made it an enjoyable read.

There is a well known poem that says the most important part of life is what happens in the dash between the birth and death dates on a gravestone. How you live your life and the people you share that time with are more important than the beginning and the end. Everything that defines a person is contained within that dash. The other is just two dates on a calendar. In Elise Juska's latest novel, The Blessings, she captures the everyday and the extraordinary moments of the dash in many of the people in a close-knit family in Philadelphia. The Blessings are a large, chaotic, Irish Catholic family living just outside of Philadelphia. They are three generations of a family like any other. They are a community related by blood, one where the members share their lives but also keep secrets from each other. They struggle and they celebrate. They suffer tragedy and they rejoice. In short, they are extraordinary for being so common. Moving through time, the novel is really self-contained short stories about different family members all threaded together by their common experience and the pull of kinship. The major shared touchstone for the Blessing family seems to be the early death from cancer of one of the sons, John Blessing, who leaves behind a wife and small children. John's death resonates through the rest of the stories even decades after it occurred, continuing to have an impact on his siblings, nieces, and nephews as well as his own immediate family. With each chapter focusing on a different member of the family and their own personal struggles within the larger context of the family, there is a lack of clear narrative arc here. And while connecting everyone through John's death is a good idea, sometimes it is a little forced to make clear how that pivotal event applies to each family member and their continuing choices. The life situations that the Blessings face are those that so many of us face: birth, life, death, marriage, divorce, infidelity. There is some happiness but more sadness and resignation than anything. In many of the chapters, the characters feel weary, as if life and circumstance has bowed them. The writing about it all though, is beautiful and well done. Juska has created a family that is incredibly familiar, full of characters like people to whom all of us are related. And there is a love and heart to the family, even if their collective feeling is based more in sadness and sympathy than in joy. What Juska has done beautifully is to illuminate the dashes in all of her characters lives. She show that real life is in the small details more than the big moments but it is the big moments that come to define us, as it does in the Blessing family.

I was fortunate enough to receive an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of "The Blessings" by Elise Juska. I devoured this book quickly, and am eager to pass it on to my mom, a bibliophile like me, who is the lucky recipient of books I have loved.The Blessings are a large Irish-American family from Philadelphia. They are your stereotypical big family, with aunts and uncles and large gatherings. During family events or dinners, the men gather around the television watching sports, while the women gather in the kitchen, talking about neighbors and friends and the latest gossip.What makes "The Blessings" such an enjoyable novel, though, is Juska's brilliant descriptive writing and the multiple points of view that are presented. Each chapter comes from the perspective of a different member of the Blessing family. There is genius in this, in that the reader not only gets an intimate look at each character's thoughts, but also builds empathy and emotional attachments to each one within the course of a single chapter.The novel encompasses a couple decades, starting with Abby, a freshman in college experiencing the world outside of her close-knit family for the first time, and ending later on with Elena, a young college graduate who has looked up to Abby and is now on her own to experience the world as well. Through the years, the Blessings face the loss of one of their own to cancer, the decline into senility and eventual death of the matriarch, divorce, bulimia, troubled young men, and the temptation of infidelity. While all these themes might normally be too heavy a burden for lesser novels to encompass at once, Juska's presentation as glimpses into different character's viewpoints makes the transition between each event seamless. The vignettes of each character and how they perceive each circumstance allows the book to flow easily through the years. Certain flashbacks enable the reader to see a situation from various point of view, and how each has affected multiple member of the family in one way or another. I was left cheering for this family and feeling as though I was tied to them through the heartstrings that Juska wove in this novel. It is splendid in its telling. Her descriptive writing is not heavy, making for light yet deeply penetrating reading. I highly recommend this book, especially as a solid summer read.