Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book to review.
I recently finished reading To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. The book tells the story of Judith Whitman, a film editor who lives a posh life in Los Angeles but has may doubts about her life. Doubts about her relationship with her husband, doubts about her abilities as a mother, and doubts about her first love whom she left behind in Nebraska when she got accepted into Stanford.
The book is beautifully written but I found Judith to be unlikeable. I found her to be vain, selfish, and self-centered, not really giving a sh*t about her daughter or her husband and shrugging off her responsibilities to go off to meet her long lost love. Her husband seemed like a prick, and her daughter seemed spoiled.
Oscillating between Judith's life as a teen and the present, the book is Judith's journey back to her first love. I found myself being more engaged in the story of Judith's life as a teen than her current life.
I guess a part of the reason that I didn't like the book is that it was not uplifting. There was no moral to the story that I could gleam, or some higher calling to a better way of life. I could not really identify with Judith story, and the events of the book did not seem to really impact her to change her life for the better. I felt a bit frustrated.
One thing that I could identify with was Judith's feelings about herself as a mother. Like Judith, I'm work full time outside the home and can't really imagine myself as a stay at home mom. I think I would go crazy. Of course, I love my boys to death but I just like working. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a "bad mother" because I feel this way, but most of the time, I just accept that this is who I am. Not all mothers have to want to be a stay at home mom... right?
- Mary
