Long Way Back -- #6 finished

This was a good quick pager turner.  I had just started it really this yesterday and today it is done.  I enjoyed it.  I liked the connection the sister Clare & her brother Francis had to each other.  The book talked a lot about being Catholic and the Catholic faith, but it was not completely pro-Catholic either--or at least pro-Catholic in the traditional church sense.  

The main themes that sort of ran throughout the book were dealing or coping with death and music.  It kind of all wrapped up in a nice way, in that Francis who suffered through the loss of his wife kind of ended up with a nice new life that he really didn't want at first.  He never really gets over the loss of his wife, and instead of returning to a normal life, he teaches himself to play the bass guitar and joins what becomes a very popular band.  

Overall, I guess kind of mixed in my feelings on the book.  Certainly you can understand how devastated Francis had to feel after his wife dies, but how he copes makes for good reading but just not really likely.  Clare is kind of the rock of the family, trying her best to help out where ever needed, but the toil weighs her down also.  She has the normal life in the suburbs but with everything going on around her it is hard to maintain.  Again at the end, it almost seems to convenient that she is able to quit her job because Francis can take care of her.  It kind of seemed like the writer just wanted to tie up any loose ends before the end of the novel got around.

Still I think it is a good book and I enjoyed reading it.  It is one of those books that is on Wish Lists on paperbackswap so I might be listing it in the next couple of days also.