Any Bitter Thing: A Novel

Monica Wood writes beautifully, and reading her book was delightful.

She draws very clear characters and weaves their stories together smoothly.

My book club read it, and we had one of our best ever discussions, covering

a wide range of topics, from different kinds of love to the Catholic

church to children as witnesses to how people make the sacrifices they

do for each other. I strongly recommend Any Bitter Thing.

I'm torn on how to review this book. There were parts that were written so wonderfully that I wanted to read them out loud, but there were also parts that dragged on. The plot began as something beautiful, but I'm undecided on the turn it took.

This book started out at a full gallop. I was so excited to be reading it. That feeling lasted about the first 170 pages and then it turned into a train wreck.

The book attempts to pick up speed about the last 50 pages and I was glad I finished it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Very disappointing that such a promising beginning couldn't go the distance.

Not only a wonderful story, but so beautifully told. Monica Wood is a truly gifted writer. It's told in such an easy and relatable style, you'll forget your "reading". I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's wonderful!!

I chose this selection for my BookClub because the plot was something I had not yet come across in my reading although this topic has been forefront in the news the past few years.

Being a Catholic myself, I am well versed with church dogma and spent many years in the company of priests and nuns. This was a first time read for me by this author, so I had none of her other works to use as a comparison.

Although the beginning drew me in, for some reason the novel did not keep riveted.
I am not sure why. Perhaps it was the author's style of writing, it just seemed to me, that it took a long time to tell a simple story.

This is a story filled with love, loss, forgiveness and the tenacity of family.
Although the author spent lots of time developing Lizzie's character, I wish she had spent more time developing Father Mike's and Vivienne's. I wanted more about them and never really got it. I had questions for which I never got answers; what happens to Lizzie's and Father Mike's relationship? Andrea Harmon? Why no scene between Father Mike and Vivienne?...and a few others.

I appreciated the plot twists in the later chapters, I didn't see all of them coming. This was an unexpected treat which woke me up long enough to finish the story.

The story had lots of potential but I think the way it was written it never quite reached it.

All in all, a sad tale with no real winners. All the characters were left hurt and broken.

This was one of the best books I've read in a long time - let me correct that - one of the best books I've ever read. The characters are so beautifully drawn and the relationship between Father Mike and Lizzy during her childhood formed a strong bond that never broke. Ms. Wood describes so eloquently a scene from Lizzy's childhood where the children, Lizzy and Mariette, are sewing leather for shoes together and Father Mike enters the house wanting to help. After describing the scene, she writes, "I remember this. All this sweetness."

There are certainly several circumstances in this book that are surprising and ripe for discussion, which is why I immediately gave it to my friend to read.

My hat is off to Monica Wood. Please don't stop writing!!!

I am a big fan of author Monica Wood, even more so after meeting her at a book event. This is the second of her books I've read that have a priest as a main character. Her real uncle was a priest. This book was another great story with wonderful characters. One of my favorite things about the book is that when it starts, Lizxy's marriage is in real trouble. When the book ends, her marriage is probably stronger than it has ever been. That is only one of the many surprises I found in this book. I never anticipated any of them. Some reviewers think that some of the events were too outlandish to be believed; however, I am not one of them.

A tragic accident leads Wood's heroine, Lizzy, back to her childhood. When Lizzy's parents died in a car accident, she is sent to live with her uncle, a priest at a small parish. The idyllic childhood years unfold setting the stage for the tragedies yet to come. After all, there is no longer fall than the one from an idyllic childhood. Post-accident Lizzy tries to piece together the events that led to her sudden removal from her uncle's charge. In Wood's intricately woven plot, we find out why only at the end when the story comes together like the pieces of Humpty-Dumpty's shell.

Wood tells the story by alternating point of views between Lizzy and Father Mike. She takes readers into a maelstrom of right and wrong as the story unfolds. Father Mike is as devoted to his church as any priest. Yet he is tempted. This dilemma coupled with Lizzy's recollections of her childhood build into a gripping story.

With a cast of interesting characters, each one developed with the care of a precise writer, Wood crafts a story with masterful prose. The writing never falters as in this passage, "I spent seven years as Father Mike's child, a time delicate and fossilized, sweet as a paw print encased in amber, telling as a line on a cave wall."

This book is worth reading not just for the superb prose and story telling, but because Wood forces readers to examine their understanding of right and wrong. A great novel demands your attention long after you have finished it. That is exactly what Wood has accomplished in this fine novel.

A near-fatal accident leaves Lizzy Mitchell pinned together on a hospital bed like a chicken on a spit. In her post-trauma state she feels the presence of her uncle at her bedside, and can't go back to her own life with all its losses and unanswered questions.

Lizzy was orphaned as a baby and lived with her uncle, a small-town Catholic priest, until she was nine. Her childhood was filled with love and belonging: "Once, I had known his step before it landed. I had drifted into sleep on the tide of his voice. I had not wholly understood where he left off and I began." Then an accusation was made which Lizzy did not understand until she was much older, and he was torn from her with no explanation. The pain of that loss -- "whereishewhereishewhereishe" -- shaped her life to the age of thirty, when her accident, she says, "shook loose that old bitterness from its hiding place inside my own body." Her search for truth eventually reveals the secrets and lies that took everything away from her. What was the price of it all, and who paid that devastating price?

Maine author Monica Wood uses language with astonishing grace and style. More subtly, her use of structure keeps the book on course through changing points of view. Every phrase perfectly serves the story, honors and enriches the reader. Prepare to savor this book.

Good fiction is about much more than the story. The territory of [[ASIN:0345477685 Any Bitter Thing: A Novel]] isn't limited to parental love, or innocence and betrayal, or priestly vows, or friendship and marriage, or even loss and redemption -- though it maps those areas with painful clarity. Wood's characters search for the place in time where Before turns into After, the exact point where both reside, the synthesis of what was and what is, that moment we fail to notice as it drifts or darts past. Which of them will find that elusive place? And when they find it, will it make them whole?

DO read this wonderful book.

Linda Bulger, 2008

I was cruising Amazon for a good book to read on vacation this summer in Door County Wisconsin and "Any Bitter Thing" popped up as an "if you liked this, then try this..." recommendation. What a blessing! I know other readers have claimed this book to be one of the best they have ever read, and I join them. "Any Bitter Thing" joins my top ten books of all time--up there with "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Peace Like a River," "Accidental Tourist," "Gardens of Kyoto" "Catcher in the Rye," "A Separate Peace," "A Prayer for Owen Meany," "Memoirs of a Geisha," and "Gilead." I finished the book in 2 days. Reading this book was like sitting down to a 5-star dinner, complete with all the courses and ending with the perfect, most satisfying dessert. Bravo, Ms. Wood! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!