Open House

Book 97 of my 2016 Reading Challenge
read from December 30 - 31

Open House by Elizabeth Berg

Summary (via Goodreads)
Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember - and reclaim - the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. 
Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself.

My Opinion
Oh, my heart.  I love this author's ability to write characters and Sam was uncomfortably vulnerable and real.  I felt every emotion, good and bad, that she had.

But yikes, why the phrase "I sit in the middle of the floor and rock like an autistic"?  Blech, that was unnecessary and turned me off.

A Few Quotes from the Book
"You know before you know, of course. You are bending over the dryer, pulling out the still-warm sheets, and the knowledge walks up your backbone. You stare at the man you love and you are staring at nothing; he is gone before he is gone."

"...I remove my wedding rings and put them in my jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one."