I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book. In part, this was because, by the time I finished reading it, I was confused as to why the author chose to even bother with the story. I'll explain why I say this.

Sabine is the main character, she is NOT likable at all, she in fact is the most underachiever I have ever seen other than drugged-out folks living on the streets. She never tries to succeed at anything and yet lives in this mansion to be envied. Instead of being an architect she just makes tiny architectural buildings for people. Instead of being a magician, she is just an assistant. Instead of getting married and having 2.5 children, she lives a life alone pining for a homosexual man who is deeply in love with another man.

Then we add in the fact that there does not seem to be any kind of story arc to the "story". Sabine marries the homosexual man after his partner died, I assume from AIDS since they never go into any details only that he went blind before his death and that Parsifal (the magician) also has it and is dying. We find out that Parsifal isn't really his name, and the attorney deals with his true family who suddenly come out of the woodwork to meet Sabine.

From there we just go into complete idiocy. Sabine goes to Nebraska in the middle of winter, meets all of his family, and finds out "secrets" about Parsifal aka Guy. I won't spill the secrets but the story doesn't seem to go anywhere. It literally just went from place to place with nothing actually happening that made me like anyone in the story. I think the best character of all was the darn rabbit who you don't even see much of.

I can honestly say that this story is a go-nowhere story and ends in a what the heck did I just waste all that time reading moment. If I didn't know it was from Ann Patchett and hadn't read any other books by her I would have put the author on the don't bother with this author list. But this book simply was not up to her normal style of writing and sadly left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I came across this book by accident on kindle and read it for free on KU. It is the first work I've read by Ann Patchett, though I have heard about her in the past. At first I was a little skeptical that I was going to be able to get into the story but after a bit the ride smoothed out and I ended up enjoying it a great deal.