It took me some time to get into this book. I guess I didn't find it "wickedly funny" or "hilarious" like so many other people have. But, the longer I read, the more value I found in it. On the surface, Lila drove me crazy. She was so spoiled and entitled. Spending a million dollars on her wedding? What a waste! And I couldn't figure out why the beautiful, privileged, self-involved young woman would spend her time in a stranger's (Phoebe's) suite instead of celebrating her wedding week with her friends and family. Although she was so self-absorbed, she didn't even seem to like her friends and family. Meanwhile, Phoebe is trying to follow through with a plan to kill herself because she felt her life was at a dead end.
Once I got past all of that, I started seeing each character for the multi-layered people that they were - and I could actually identify with some of the decisions they were making. Phoebe's husband cheated on her with her best friend; she was in a dead end job - at the same school that her husband, Matt, and her friend, Mia taught at too; she was infertile; she was depressed; her beloved cat died. So, she booked a room at an extravagant hotel (where she had wanted to vacation with her husband but he planned a different, ordinary trip for them) so that she could end her life. The first thing I loved about Phoebe was her deciding to spend the last day of her life being brutally honest about everything. It's so hard to tell the truth. She boldly tells Lila that she came to the hotel to end her life. Lila gets upset because she doesn't want Phoebe's death to ruin her wedding.
Phoebe and Lila strike up an unlikely friendship, but once the reader gets to know Lila better, it's more understandable. Lila is also very unhappy in her life, despite "having it all." Her finance, Gary is also not really himself. He is chasing happiness while being very sad (still) about the death of his first wife. Then there is Jim, Gary's best man and the brother of his dead wife, Wendy. All four of these people are struggling and they have spent too many years living their lives being pushed into a direction that isn't right for them, simply because they don't know how to get out of the choices they have made. And it's too hard to tell people the truth of how they are feeling.
I absolutely loved the last 100 pages of the book. Phoebe explains to the bride and bridesmaids what Cubism is. There is a painting of Lila's naked mother painted in the Cubism style that was gifted to Gary after he visited the gallery that Lila worked at. She thought he loved it and understood art. He didn't realize it was Lila's mother. Anyway, Phoebe explains that, "...it was an artistic and intellectual movement in the early twentieth century. They believed if you aren't seeing something from all sides, you aren't seeing it fully." This, of course, is the theme of the book. Then, Marla (Gary's sister who had an affair), told Phoebe that "[t]he affair is the easy way out - the fantasy of believing someone else can give you what you don't know how to give yourself." Another quote from the end of the book explains the same sentiment in a different way. Phoebe contemplates that "[i]t is so much easier to sit in things and wait for something to save us. Phoebe sat in the bad things the way she used to sit in the snow as a child."
I loved the people these characters decided to be by the end of the book. Lots of honesty (finally) and lots of growth.
Wendy's Rating: ****
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