One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

By Elise Juska

Book Overview

For two quietly unhappy years, linguist Claire Gallagher has been living deep in the New Hampshire woods, enduring a polite but strained marriage to a highly respected scientist. Once a determined overachiever and academic star in her own right, she now spends her days avoiding her stalled dissertation and creating EZ crossword puzzles. But for all Claire's knowledge of words and their meanings, the meaning in her own life eludes her. One bleak morning in winter, she announces that she's leaving. By nightfall, at the urging of her younger sister Noelle, Claire finds herself heading to the last place she thought she would ever go: Ireland -- the birthplace of her abrasive, chronically ill mother and the country Noelle, a college dropout, now calls home. In a small town on the Irish coast, Claire's struggle to move ahead with her life takes her deep into the puzzles of her past -- in a world in which there are no simple answers, and the only questions that matter are those of the heart.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416516921
• ISBN13: 9781416516927
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Good character development

Juska is very good with character development. I almost gave up on it because in the first half I found Claire to be the most boring, uptight, and stuck up character but as she looks back on her past and learns some important "life lessons" in Ireland her personality improves and she becomes more likeable. However, I liked her previous book "The Hazards of Sleeping Alone" much better.

Ms. Juska's best book yet

I know I'm always in for a great read when I sit down to one of Juska's novels. This one in particular kept me glued to the pages. I really enjoyed getting to know Claire (main character) through her relationships with her husband, sister and mother. Juska's descriptions are vivid and often humorous. I loved the entertaining way that she punctuated a moment with various definitions of a word. I really truly enjoyed this book and want to offer my congratulations to the author on a beautifully written story.