Promises to Keep by Jane Green

(This book is called The Love Verb in the UK and I actually think that title works much better for the book.)

The book is about a group of friends and family that are happily living their lives when they are devastated with the news that one of their group is dying of cancer.  It’s the story of how they come together to deal with the illness and imminent death of a close friend.

I didn’t really like this book.  First off, I was expecting it to be light hearted chick lit and obviously it wasn’t.  It was a lot heavier and emotional than I was expecting.  (Which isn’t really a flaw in the book but still colours how I feel about it in the long run.  It may be a marketing flaw but it was probably just a mistake on my part.)  Second, I found that the story took a really long time getting started.  Over half the book was character development and setting the stage for the real story to start.  I think I would have appreciated the book more if there was more story after the diagnosis.  This is what the book really should have been about (and I think is what it’s supposed to be about) but this part of the story just isn’t developed enough for me.  Third, I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing.  It wasn’t really bad, but it wasn’t great either.  And fourth, there were recipes between each chapter and while they weren’t really distracting or anything, I just didn’t really get what the point of them was.  One of the characters was a chef and really loved cooking and if she had been more of the main character it might have worked better.

I didn’t totally hate the book though.  It definitely pulled at my heart strings.  The dying character has two young children and I found myself just sick at the thought of dying and leaving my own children without a mother.  I really think the story had potential because it’s such a real story, such a familiar story.