Review by Pinkrose353 -- The Bennett Women

[Pinkrose353]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Bennett Women" by Roberta R. Carr.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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The Bennett Women by Roberta R. Carr is the fictional story of three generations of women in the Bennett family. Muriel, the grandmother, lives alone in a big house near an Oregon lake that has been her home for most of her married life. Her closest neighbors and friends, Catherine and Ben, are, like her, in their eighties and live alone in their individual homes on either side of Muriel's. They jokingly call it the geriatric row. Ben's wife Esther used to be their fourth bridge partner, until Alzheimer's forced Ben to admit her to a nursing home.


Susanne, Muriel's daughter, lives in Northern California and works as the CEO of a big technology company, that has tens of thousands of employees. Susanne is in the process of expanding her company to Vietnam. Her go-getter personality has put her at odds with her artist mother, her husband, who divorced her, and her daughter Lilia.


Lilia is in her last year at the Music Conservatory in Boston, studying music and playing her cello in a rising-in-fame string quartet. Her mother's ambitions for her, put Lilia under a lot of pressure to satisfy the demands of her highly-paid tutor Louis, and the high-aspirations-driven leader of the string quartet Peter. Lilia, who feels closer to her grandmother than her mother, enjoys spending her summer vacations with her grandmother and her elderly neighbors.


Each of these three women have been shaped by their life experiences and bring their own emotional baggage into their relationships with each other. Susanne, who feels responsible for her widowed mother's welfare, is trying to pressure Muriel to move to an assisted-living facility, whereas Lilia supports her grandmother's desire to stay in her beloved home and peaceful surroundings.


Life changes suddenly for these three women, when Muriel slips and falls in her kitchen one evening and is hospitalized with a concussion and two broken ribs, that puncture one side of her lung. Her neighbors, Catherine and Ben, seek to support her, and delay notifying Susanne and Lilia, because they are aware of Susanne's plans for her mother and Lilia's pressure-packed schedule. Lilia finds out about her grandmother's situation, and immediately drops all her commitments and rushes to her grandmother's side. Susanne, who is notified by the hospital's social worker of her mother's condition, chooses to fly to Vietnam first to fulfill her company's expansion plans.


It is interesting how the author uses Susanne's time in Vietnam as the catalyst that eventually brings healing to the strained relationships of the three Bennet women. And like any good fiction story, a romantic relationship develops in the middle of the book between Lilia and the grandson of Ben.


I give the book a 3 out of 4 stars. There are some typos and a few poor word choices e.g. "A smile plastered across her face", when in fact the character is truly happy. I would have liked to see the characters better developed as unique individuals with their unique habits and idiosyncrasies. There was no description of what the three elderly friends looked like.


Since we'll all face old age and generation conflicts, each age group of the main characters can identify with the story. It is gripping and moves along well, and thankfully there is a peaceful and hopeful ending to a book that started out depressing.

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The Bennett Women
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[Umesh Bhatt]

Interesting review about the story of three women belonging to three generations. Thanks.