Monday, March 11, 2024

Ruptured, by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz

While Claire and her mother are eating lunch, her mother confides that she's thinking of separating from her father.  Before Claire can ask her mother to reconsider, Mom collapses on the floor from a brain aneurysm. For the next couple of weeks, her mother's situation is tenuous but she does begin a slow path to recovery.  Once conscious, it becomes apparent that she has trouble keeping events straight and she can't remember the day of the attack.

Claire wavers over whether she should tell anyone what her mother said.  Perhaps she no longer believes it.  But what will happen when Mom does remember what she was feeling?  Claire's previously distant Dad has been devotedly doting on his wife.  Perhaps, his actions can make up for whatever triggered her mother's doubts about the marriage in the first place?

This quick read is all the more speedy for being written in verse.  It's not a particularly compelling use of the method and mostly just allows the action to race ahead without much attention to character development.  Outside of Claire herself, there isn't much room to expand on much of anyone.  There's some sketchy drama with a friend and some set backs in Mom's recovery, but these are glossed over.  I found it pretty thin.

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