Review: Happiness Is In A...Mixing Bowl?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 26, 2014
***Received from The Book Avenue for an honest review***Truthfully, I struggled with this book. Not because it was poorly written. Not because it was boring. I struggled with it because it was so real.Kate is a lovely woman with an…interesting (I guess you could call them that, lol) family. I’m not fond of her mother-in-law, and, over the course of the book, of Jack either. It seems that they had nothing connecting them once their kids were gone, and the discord (or maybe it’s discontent) between them became more and more apparent throughout the pages.When Kate began her affair with Anders, I didn’t t agree with it at all because she was married. I understood what she felt when she was with Anders because she wasn’t receiving that kind of attention or affection from Jack, but that wasn’t reason enough for me to say it was okay.But, strangely, I was incredibly heartbroken when their relationship ended.There is a part of this book that I have highlighted and bookmarked. Why? It was the first time in the entire book I fell in love with both Kate and Jack. The before didn’t even matter to me at this point because in that moment, when faced with a question that neither dared to approach (maybe they didn’t want to or maybe they couldn’t at the time), they were honest with each other.They say communication is the key to any great relationship. It’s true because everyone involved is aware of what the other is feeling, even if what they’re feeling is painful to listen to. It took ten years for Kate and Jack to face the root of their problems, to silently acknowledge that what they wanted so many years ago had died a slow death over the years.I think the biggest surprise came at the end, and I can’t tell you how happy I was that Kate had the happy ending she’d been looking for, for so long. It might’ve come about in an unconventional way, and it might’ve been the product of too much brokenness, but it seemed befitting, I think.Thank you, Ms. Fenton, for writing a story about love found, lost, and discovered with someone new. I may have struggled to read this book because of its content, but I can say I’d struggle through it again just to watch Kate Winters find her happiness once again.