Little Disasters

Little Disasters by Randall Klein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm beginning to think that my liking a book has to do with the mood I'm in. This book shouldn't have been called Little Disasters, it should have been called Terrible People.

I'll start out by saying that the writing itself is lovely. I felt fully immersed in the plot and the setting. You're transported to New York City and taken through the course of a few years in the life of the main four characters. The author has created full and vibrant characters for you to latch onto and relate to.

He did such an excellent job, that I ended up hating two of the characters. As in I wanted to crawl through the pages and just throttle them.

One downside to this entire experience were the flashbacks. I don't mind a decent flashback scene every once in a while, but there were countless ones in this novel. Sometimes flashbacks within flashbacks. It got to be a tad too much.

Spoilery plot points ahead
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The plot follows two couples who have babies on the same day. The fathers meet outside the hospital while awaiting the birth of their children. Both women, for reasons, have decided that the men are not allowed in the birthing room with them; that the births are things they as women should have all to themselves. I could unpack the misogyny of it all, but who has time for that?

We find out later that Paul and Jenny's child has died, while Michael and Rebecca's child has lived. This is told through flashback. During the present day there is some sort of potential terrorist attack on the city and both Michael and Paul are stranded and unable to get home.

But wait! Turns out that Jenny and Michael started an affair. End sympathies here. Jenny and Michael continue to be terrible people throughout the entire book. Carrying on literally in front of their spouses faces at once point. They finally decide to "do the right thing" and leave their spouses for each other. Try not to sprain your eyes with that eye roll. In case you were wondering just how awful they are? Michael feels basically ZERO guilt. Jenny? Well she has it in her head that the first time she cheated on Paul was her fault, but every other time he let her get away with it is somehow his fault.

See? Terrible people.

All in all, I'm going to end up giving this book 4 stars. I didn't care for the flashback aspect of how it was written. But ultimately, the author created vibrant characters for me to love, hate, and sympathize with, so that counts for something.


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