Reviewed by Emma Crowley
When 35-year-old Leni McKenzie is knocked off her bike, her family's world is turned upside down.
Leni and her sister Alice were best friends as well as siblings. But did they know each other as well as Alice thought? In the hope of coming to terms with her grief, she tries to piece together Leni's last weeks - but her discoveries only lead to more questions. And that's before the surprise reappearance of someone from the past. Life is certainly getting very complicated...
Meanwhile, the rest of the family seem to be falling apart. Belinda, Alice's mum, has developed an unhealthy obsession with a clairvoyant, and Tony, her dad, is stressed about becoming a father all over again, what with three failed marriages stacking up behind him.
As for Will, the youngest McKenzie, he's in denial, having hopped onto a plane to Thailand days after the funeral. Secretly, he's tormented by the part he played in Leni's death ... and the thing about secrets is, they always come out eventually...
Many thanks to Quercus via NetGalley for my copy of The Best Days of Our Lives and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Given the subject matter of The Best Days of Our Lives, the new book by Lucy Diamond, you’d be forgiven for thinking this story would be all doom and gloom and extremely difficult to read. Especially as we all know dealing with the aftermath of losing a loved one can be a challenge and have such a long and devastating impact. But thankfully this story wasn’t all misery, anguish and sadness as it could have easily descended into this vein. Instead, the author provides the reader with a snapshot into the year of a family following the loss of their sister Leni and in doing so provides moments of hope and courage to all who read the book. I appreciated the honesty throughout and although the characters are each fractured and torn apart by their loss they have to learn to come to terms with the fate that has befallen them. Through many experiences and an extensive journey they learn lots about themselves and several secrets are also revealed too.
I’ll be entirely honest and say I found this book too long and it could have done with less chapters in order to condense the story a bit more. I struggled to get through the first half or so but found once I reached perhaps around the 55% mark I finally started to really engage with each individual character. I think because at this point things started to happen and the secrets and issues that each person had been hiding started to come to the fore. Connections were being made and hearts were being opened and everyone was learning to be real and honest otherwise what was the point. Yes, the first half for me dragged but as the family stumbled towards acceptance and in doing so grew and matured and at the same time I felt there was a turning point and the my earlier misgivings began to disappear.
A brief introduction has the reader meeting Leni as she is about to celebrate her 35th birthday with her family. She has constant reminders of what she had but once lost as she sees her family members doing well in life or she thinks. Leni is no longer with her husband and her long held hopes of becoming a mother are just a pipe dream. Fast forward five and a half months later and Leni’s family are deep in the grieving process although they are trying to hide their true feelings from each other particularly her brother Will. This leads to all sorts of complications as the months progress the family become ever more fractured. But this fracturing needs to occur in order for them to try and begin the acceptance process and find their way back to each other again. This is extremely difficult as Leni was taken from them so prematurely when she had an accident whilst on her bike.
What follows are chapters from each family’s members viewpoint, her sister Alice, her brother Will, her mother Belinda and her father Tony. As there were so many characters to get to know I thought things might become quite confusing but it was easy to follow each of their individual storylines and I enjoyed seeing how at some point they were bound to come together. The absence of Leni is felt keenly by her family and by the reader too. You are desperate to get to know her and to read things from her perspective but you know this can’t occur but the further the story develops you do get a sense of who she was and how integral she was to the family and how loved she was.
Since Leni’s death, Alice has fallen apart and it comes to a climax when she quits her job rather than deal with her anger issues as tentatively suggested by her boss. Her marriage is over as her husband can’t cope with what she has turned into and all the solid structures once in place in her life are gone. As Alice says ’The world spun off it’s axis and everything went dark’ and this how every family member feels. I could see instantly that Alice was filled with both rage and regret at what had happened and also guilt the reason for which becomes apparent fairly early on. She feels she didn’t know Leni in her last few weeks of life and so when she finds her diary with some unusual entries she sets about learning more. This was the catalyst for Alice starting some self-healing but really can we ever truly reach that end point in relation to this especially when all we want is that person back in our lives? Leni’s death forces Alice to rebuild things in her own life and I loved the metaphor of the butterfly showing her struggle and the symbolism of the peacock feathers throughout the book. It worked really well and didn’t seem out of the ordinary or over the top.’Sometimes the act of getting through a trauma can give you strength you didn’t have before-strength to fly’.
Belinda is dealing with her grief in a different way and her partner Ray is extremely worried about her. Hours spent talking to Leni through a psychic hotline may be bringing Belinda comfort but deep down surely she must know that this is not real at all? She may be finding short term comfort but long-term acceptance seems very far away. As her ex-husband Tony seems to have had a revelation/wake up call when it comes to his own life situation Belinda starts to realise things from the past which she desperately wanted kept hidden could be about to break through the surface. Can a lid be kept on something she and someone else have been sitting on for years? Or will a new can of worms be opened up?
As for Will, when Leni died he fled. He can’t deal with the emotions her loss has stirred up and instead he spends his days selling knock off gear on the beaches of Thailand. Initially, I got the sense the other family members were willing to leave him off to his own devices as they were too caught up in their own misery and grief. Of course, you can understand this but I felt Will was crying out for help. That the show of doing well in Thailand and enjoying the good life was just that of bravado. Will, needs a little bit of love in his life and to crack open his false exterior and reveal what is truly haunting him. Only then will he begin to travel on the road to acceptance and full family reunification.
I never thought I would be saying this but Tony was my favourite character throughout the entire story. Normally, I don’t overly connect with male characters but there was just something about him that made me very fond of him. Tony is starting a new chapter in his life. Becoming a Dad for the fourth time with his new partner Jackie. He can’t believe this is happening and is not overly keen to get involved with preparations thinking everything will be just as it was when his older kids were born. Tony is sweet and a bit gormless and slowly bit by bit as he starts to wake up and understand that he needs to change he comes to a realisation that the family that he left behind when his marriage broke down, that maybe it’s not too late to make amends with them. He establishes a family WhatsApp group in order to get everyone talking and despite his best intentions it seems that no one is that overly keen to engage with him. But I admired him for his persistence and the fact he admitted to himself that things needed to change and with a new arrival due he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as he had done with his older children. He is devastated by the loss of Leni but without this occurring I don’t think he would have undergone the transformative journey which I enjoyed following. He tries so hard to repair family bridges and I found myself rooting for him all the way.
The Best Days of Our Lives has a sad and difficult event that forms the core of the book from which all the other events and situations involving the characters evolve from. Despite this, it is an uplifting read and there are many important life lessons to be learnt from it. Overall, I did enjoy the story and found it to be inspiring and helpful. We are provided with a satisfactory ending with many explanations given and loose ends tied up which I was glad we weren’t provided with an ambiguous ending. I would recommend this book as it was enjoyable whilst reading but as for being one of the more memorable books I have read recently perhaps maybe not but I appreciate what I took from it at the time.
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