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Outside The Ordinary World. Dori Ostermiller (2011)

by Dori Ostermiller(Favorite Author)

3.47 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

077830468X (ISBN13: 9780778304685)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Mira Books

review 1: 3.5 stars.A preface: I hate that awkward feeling, shortly after you start a book, when you realize that you've read it before. In my case, for this book, I could tell I'd read it before (curse me for not reviewing it then!!), but I couldn't remember what was going to happen, which is what kept me going. After something happened I would often get an "oh yeah, I remember that now" kind of flash. It was annoying, and dampened some of my feelings for this title, I am sure. It's not something I wanted to read twice, though the first time through maybe I would have given it four stars.This is about parental, sibling, and romantic relationships. Throw in some child/teenager issues too for good measure. It's about repeating the mistakes that you watched your mother make when you w... moreere a kid (having an affair when she was unhappy in the marriage). It's about trying to find yourself and your way, and how to hold your family together during all of this.The writing is good, or else I probably wouldn't have kept reading after I realized it wasn't completely new to me. The ending is a bit flat after such a long and slow build-up, though I guess it is satisfying in its own way.Regret can be a useless, debilitating emotion, and it's explored well here. I also liked the addition of the crazy goat lady down the road from the dream house.
review 2: Dori Ostermiller�s debut novel, Outside the Ordinary World, covers a lot of ground. It�'s the engrossing history of a complex family, an examination of marriage and its challenges, and a reflection on how women may find themselves becoming their own mothers, despite every effort not to.Moving back and forth, in alternating chapters, over the 30 years between the mid-1970�s and the present day and from California to Massachusetts, Ostermiller follows the parallels and differences between the disintegration of Sylvia Sandon�'s parents'� marriage when she was a child and the current crisis in her own. Despite Sylvia�'s determination not to have history repeat itself or to have her mother'�s story become her own, a distance has grown between her and her husband Nathan, leaving room for a mutual attraction to develop between her and landscape gardener Tai Rosen. Sylvia�'s conflict is further complicated by a rebellious daughter, an endless house renovation, a dying grandmother, and the memories of how her parents'� marriage ended - and the role she believes she played in it.Marital fidelity and its opposite are the dominant themes of the novel, and they'�re considered thought-provokingly and from various perspectives. Infidelity is a complicated topic, and given my own personal experience with it, I appreciated that it was treated as such. It doesn't�t tend to happen unless a space has been created in a marriage that allows it to, although sometimes the spouses may not realize the space is there until one partner'�s actions force them to face it. It doesn't�t automatically mean a marriage is over, either. And it affects more people, in more unpredictable ways, than those directly participating in it. Outside the Ordinary World is vividly written and held my attention fully. While there were scenes that felt a little overdone to me, for the most part the story felt emotionally true, and the characters - particularly Sylvia and her mother Elaine - were well-drawn and developed. This novel is quality women�'s fiction, and would give book groups quite a lot to talk about. less

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