The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman is about growing up, keeping secrets, death, friendship, jealousy, and marriage. Three brothers and two girls form a close friendship but when an incident occurs in the woods where they go exploring, it affects them and their parents for years to come. The novel jumps around a lot with flashbacks and hopping from one family to the next. The reader gets to know the parents and their struggles as well as the kids who grow up into adults with struggles of their own. Sometimes I found it hard to follow. This is a mystery with complex characters. It kept me reading to discover exactly what the most dangerous thing was; not telling you. You’ll just have to read this to find out!
I liked the flashbacks to the kids hanging out together but overall this is a sad story with a dark view of marriage. Only one out of 6 marriages were really happy which I found kind of sad. This is slow moving and depressing. If you enjoy family sagas and lots of interpersonal relationship dynamics, then you may like this one.
Have you read this one? What did you think of it?
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I read this book recently and like you, had to keep reading to find out what the dangerous thing was! I was a little disappointed in the story itself though and agree with you on the view of marriages too.
ReplyDeleteWe had pretty similar views of this one! It was a bit too much going on to fully develop any one story. I felt like if she had just focused on one family and not all of them, it would have been a stronger book.
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