DNF

Mending the Moon
by Susan Palwick
standalone
336p.
Publisher: Tor
Source: Tor for review

Melinda Soto, aged sixty-four, vacationing in Mexico, is murdered by a fellow American tourist.

Back in her hometown of Reno, Nevada, she leaves behind her adopted son, Jeremy, whom she rescued from war-torn Guatamala when he was a toddler—just one of her many causes over the years. And she leaves behind a circle of friends: Veronique, the academic stuck in a teaching job from which she can't retire; Rosemary, who's losing her husband to Alzheimer's and who's trying to lose herself in volunteer work; Henrietta, the priest at Rosemary's and Melinda's church. 

Jeremy already had a fraught relationship with his charismatic mother and the people in her orbit. Now her death is tearing him apart, and he can barely stand the rituals of remembrance that ensue among his mother’s friends. Then the police reveal who killed Melinda: a Seattle teenager who flew home to his parents and drowned himself just days later. 

It's too much. Jeremy's not the only one who can't deal. Friendships fray. But the unexpected happens: an invitation to them all, from the murderer's mother, to come to Seattle for his memorial. It's ridiculous. And yet, somehow, each of them begins to see in it a chance to heal. Aided, in peculiar ways, by Jeremy's years-long obsession with the comic-book hero Comrade Cosmos, and the immense cult of online commentary it's spawned. 

Shot through with feeling and inventiveness, Susan Palwick's Mending the Moon is a novel of the odd paths that lead to home.

I started out thinking that despite the darkness that it would have a lot of light at the end, but there was so much sadness and anger it was just hard for me to deal with right now. I just wasn't in the mood for the book. And when anger was turned on an innocent dog (it wasn't physically abused and the dog is okay... it was all just in the random thoughts of people hurting) I just didn't want to read further. It made sense in the story and showed how much the people were hurting, but I just had to have something light.

What is strange is that for what I read I can see me recommending this book. The writing was well done and I can see her weaving in lots of personal aspects of the character to bring home the emotions very effectively. Perhaps too much in my case. I do hope to start this one up again someday and see how the book goes.

I rarely post DNFs but I've read that several people like to know why. I thought I'd say that sometimes it isn't a bad book, but just not good timing for the reader. If you read this one, I'd love to know what you thought!

Any books you DNF'd for the same reason?