I picked up Pretending To Dance at the library. I had read books by Diane Chamberlain in the past and thought this one looked good as well. It turned out to be an interesting a quick read, which is the type of book I always enjoy!
“Molly Arnette is very good at keeping secrets. She and her husband live in San Diego, where they hope to soon adopt a baby. But the process terrifies her. As the questions and background checks come one after another, Molly worries that the truth she’s kept hidden about her North Carolina childhood will rise to the surface and destroy not only her chance at adoption, but her marriage as well. She ran away from her family twenty years ago after a shocking event left her devastated and distrustful of those she loved: Her mother, the woman who raised her and who Molly says is dead but is very much alive. Her birth mother, whose mysterious presence raised so many issues. The father she adored, whose death sent her running from the small community of Morrison Ridge. Now, as she tries to find a way to make peace with her past and embrace a future filled with promise, she discovers that even she doesn’t know the truth of what happened in her family of pretenders.”
The book goes back and forth between the early 90s in North Carolina and the present in California. Molly was 14 in the early 90s and I could relate to her teenage self, as I was a preteen in the early 90s too. There were a lot of Johnny Depp and New Kids On The Block references! Molly had some questionable friendships at the time and her parents tried to make sure she didn’t get into trouble, but they were preoccupied with their own problems. Molly’s father was very ill with MS. The things that happened in Molly’s past effect her in the present, while she and her husband are hoping to adopt a baby. What her husband didn’t know was that Molly herself had a birth mother and an adoptive mother. This is the story that is uncovered as we learn about Molly’s past. There is a lot of ground covered in the book, from living with a debilitating disease, to father-daughter and mother-daughter relationships, to adoption, to husband-wife relationships. While some of the story may have been predictable, there was a lot to love about the book and I enjoyed reading it a lot.
What have you been reading lately?