Lila Kennedy had been shocked. After all, she had written a successful book about her successful marriage. Then her husband told her he had met someone else and he wanted a divorce. Oh by the way, he and his new wife were going to have a baby and he had to cut his child support payments as he was now going to have a baby and his wife had a child from her previous relationship. Her two daughters were a challenge, she had recently lost her mother and her grieving step-father was gradually moving his things into her rapidly deteriorating house. Her next book was to be about her joyous freedom in being middle-aged and single. More on that later. As if all this wasn't enough, her biological father shows up at her door after thirty-five years of being mostly absent. She was rapidly running out of the proverbial other shoe(s) to drop.
In WE ALL LIVE HERE, by Jojo Moyes, the characters do live together, mostly at the same time. Expertly told, the author brings to life a family whose dynamics are mercurial. Their vividly depicted interactions with each other are believable and relatable. Readers follow Lila and her family as they try to adjust to their new situation. There are stumbles, surprises and a lot of self-searching. Engrossing from the first page, the story moves quickly. It is told with wit and sensitivity primarily in Lila's and her oldest daughter Celie's voices. Character-driven and packed with emotion, this family's story is well worth reading.
Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family.
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