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Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees (2000)

by Grace Mattioli(Favorite Author)

3.02 of 5 Votes: 3

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English

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review 1: This small book, like its main character (Sylvia Greco) is packed with energy and vitality. This is a family saga; each family member is a distinct piece in the larger puzzle of the Greco family. The Grecos are a large New Jersey family of Italian descent headed up by a functioning alcoholic whose home is falling apart but who is never late to work. He is a judge and well-respected in the community. At home he flies into drunken rages and cuts his children to the quick with his remarks and threats. Sylvia walks on eggshells all the time, and her project is to a) try to get her entire family together for a celebratory dinner, b) keep everyone from fighting, and c) get her father (who can well afford it) to make good on his promise to send his youngest son to college in... more California. The story really hit home with me, not because I'm from a large family, but because I have a dysfunctional family. Walking on eggshells is so familiar to me! Sylvia's journey from an unemployed young woman in paint-stained baggy jeans sitting at her father's kitchen table to skilled family negotiator is nothing short of miraculous. You can sense how she must feel when she drops a container of milk in her Dad's kitchen "because the carton had greasy fingerprints all over it." She knows what each of her siblings needs to hear in order to attend the dinner. Not until the very end do we find out if everyone will show up or if the dinner will end with one of her father's drunken rages. Read it and find out!
review 2: Very well written of a dysfunctional loud New Jersey Italian family. It is written from the view point of the middle child of four kind of lost with recently seperated parents. Her mission is a high school graduation party that would include the whole family. She feels this would make her world come together. Travel with her as she tries to pull it together and see what she learns about herself along the way. less

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