I read this book at exactly the wrong time. Or maybe it was exactly the right time. My grandfather was moving rapidly from home to a hospital to a nursing home to a hospice. This book is all about injury and death and relationships, and it hit way too close to home for me. 
 It was kind of pretty and it was well written, but mostly it just struck me as sad. These realistic books just don't do it for me right now--i read these days to escape reality, not to be confronted by it. I did appreciate the fact that it had a more honest ending than The Notebook, at least. But i felt like there were important themes, like religion and war and race, that were drowned out in this book by the more mundane ones. The story focused on dysfunctional families and their misfortunes. And i guess that too is in line with reality inasmuch as people are most affected by individual people, as opposed to religions and governments and such. But i found it disappointing. 
 I was confused by the fact that three of the chapters were told in first person and the rest were--if i remember correctly--told in third. It seemed somewhat random and i didn't understand why it was done that way. And some of the stories weren't followed to a satisfying conclusion and therefore felt rather pointless altogether. 
 I think i just didn't get this book. I feel like i ought to be old enough now to get something more out of books like this, but i just don't. I realize that it's trying to tell me that love and devotion are all that really matter, even if they're not romantic in nature, and even if they hurt like hell sometimes. But i think there are more interesting and impactful ways of conveying that message.