We Are Water

I recently finished reading Wally Lamb's book We Are Water.


If you have read my previous review on The Goldfinch, you will already be aware that I am not fond of reading the book's sleeve in its entirety. Instead, I read a few sentences and then decide to jump into the story. . . or not! This was my tactic with Wally Lamb's book as well. As a result, all I knew going into the book was that Annie Oh had left a marriage of twenty seven years for a woman.

The book is truly centered around the Oh family, their past, and how they got to the place they are at. It started off quite slowly with the narrative focused on character development rather than plot. In the end while it is worth it to get a sense of who these characters are and where their motivations come from, I felt the build was unnecessarily slow. Though the story is mostly focused around Annie, and her now-ex husband Orion, it also gives brief glimpses into the lives of the three children, as well as Annie's fiancée, Viveca.

While slow at the beginning, the pacing certainly picks up about one-third to halfway through the story. The narrative itself switches from Annie's, to Orion's, to the children's point-of-view, among others. The timeframe also switches from the present, to the crux of the Oh's marriage breakdown, to even further into Annie's past. We Are Water is beautifully written and demonstrates how even if we think we can escape our past and its many ghosts, it will always surface in our present.

I deducted half a star for the tedious start of the novel, but other than that the book would be a solid four stars. It is well written, contains interesting characters who are nicely developed, and shows the growth and change of people over time as a result of our circumstances. Okay, so does any novel ever but this book is great and is definitely worth reading!