Saint Maybe

It's been a great long while since I've been this let down by a book. The first half or so I was really interested and was excited to see where it was all going. Turns out, it really wasn't going anywhere at all. Too much time was spent cleaning out a house (seriously??) and the ending was so dull. “The Church of Second Chances” is a really weird name for what was a really weird church.

Good ol' [a:Anne Tyler 457 Anne Tyler https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1529285150p2/457.jpg]. She never disappoints. I love her characters and their realistic conversations and situations. In this case, poor Ian thinks he caused his older brother's death and it changes his entire life as he tries to make up for his perceived mistake.I guess in Ian's shoes, I might also join some whacked-out church and hope for redemption, though he's not sure what that looks like. What his life becomes is one of sacrifice as he, at age 19, leaves college to raise his brother's children, two of which (and maybe all three) aren't biologically related to Ian. He's such a good guy, trying so hard to do the right thing. In fact, doing the right thing becomes an obsession with Ian. Agatha, the oldest of his brother's children, seems to be the one most in tune with Ian. Thomas, the second oldest, seems fine to skate through life without a care. Then there's the youngest, Daphne, who is more spiritually in line with Ian and maybe has the most realistic expectations of life. I love how the story takes the characters through 20 years in the blink of an eye, or so it seems. Tyler's sparse descriptions convey just enough about the other members of the Second Chance church, the foreigner neighbors, dear Mrs. Jordan , and Reverend Emmett as well as Ian's aging parents. Ian seems to be there for everyone, but who will be there for Ian? It's a question that a long last is answered in a surprising way. Overall, a lovely book about a good man.