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    White Picket Fences: A Novel
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    White Picket Fences: A Novel
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    White Picket Fences: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    White Picket Fences: A Novel

    Written by Susan Meissner

    Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    When her black sheep brother disappears, Amanda Janvier eagerly takes in her sixteen year-old niece Tally. The girl is practically an orphan: motherless, and living with a father who raises Tally wherever he lands- in a Buick, a pizza joint, a horse farm-and regularly takes off on wild schemes. Amanda envisions that she, her husband Neil, and their two teenagers can offer the girl stability and a shot at a "normal" life, even though their own storybook lives are about to crumble.

    Seventeen-year-old Chase Janvier hasn't seen his cousin in years, and other than a vague curiosity about her strange life, he doesn't expect her arrival will affect him much-or interfere with his growing, disturbing interest in a long-ago house fire that plagues his dreams unbeknownst to anyone else.

    Tally and Chase bond as they interview two Holocaust survivors for a sociology project, and become startlingly aware that the whole family is grappling with hidden secrets, with the echoes of the past, and with the realization that ignoring tragic situations won't make them go away.

    Will Tally's presence blow apart their carefully-constructed world, knocking down the illusion of the white picket fence and reveal a hidden past that could destroy them all-or can she help them find the truth without losing each other?


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780307702340
    Unavailable
    White Picket Fences: A Novel
    Author

    Susan Meissner

    Susan Meissner is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than three-quarters of a million books in print in eighteen languages. Her novels have been named to numerous "best of" lists, including Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Goodreads, and Real Simple magazine. A former newspaper editor, Susan attended Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their yellow Lab, Winston. When she's not writing, Susan loves long walks, good coffee, and reading bedtime stories to her grandchildren. Visit her online at susanmeissnerauthor.com; Instagram: @susanmeissnerauthor; Twitter: @SusanMeissner; Facebook: @susan.meissner; and Pinterest: @SusanMeissner.

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    Reviews for White Picket Fences

    3.5/5

    35 ratings7 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This was a well crafted complicated story that went in several directions all at once. Meissner's books are always very readable because she knows her characters and the reader gets well acquainted with them.
    • 4/5
      Susan Meissner's White Picket Fences is the first novel I have read by this author. I really enjoyed it and purchased the audio version – Bernadette Dunne was exceptional with a wonderful voice. This book had such meaning – a seemingly perfect family (anything but).

      A beautiful yet haunting portrayal of what lies beneath a perfect suburban family. Members of this extended family learn to trust one another with secrets, fears, feelings and loved the teens and their relationship with the guys in the rest home tell their story of the Holocaust and two survivors of a concentration camp which was a connection to their family. Tally and Chase were my favorite characters and throughout the book Tally showed maturity beyond her years. I am looking forward to reading more from this author who is an excellent story teller.
    • 3/5
      When I heard about this new novel from Susan Meissner, I was extremely excited because to me "The Shape of Mercy" is now a classic that all students who study the Crucible should also have to read. While "White Picket Fences" is a completely different type of book it is still incredible writing. For me, I would not necessarily call it a favorite, but overall as a whole (redundant I know, but making a point here) I enjoyed it. Looking at the cover of this book tells you the most of what you need to know. There is the white picket fence slats and then a spiders web weaving it's way right in. Perfectionism would make one want to get rid of the web and go back to perfection, but the artistic persona would believe that the web was part of the whole picture that made it a different kind of perfect. Really, this cover could not be more appropriate for the message within the story. Several characters share their point of view and take the slot as the main protagonist going throughout the book. There is Amanda, the mother who realizes everything is fading from her grasp and her way of dealing seems to be to sit and watch it go. Then there is Tallulah, or Tally, the cousin that has had a roller coaster life, or at least it would seem that way to an outsider. Learning the obstacles and neat realities of her life is an adventure and really not all bad. Lastly of main people, there is Chase, the son who deals with a memory that he cannot see the entirety of and possibility seems to push him further and further to the edge. There were times while reading that I was just ready for something to happen. While there are some action events in this novel that is not the type of novel that it is. This book is more about the inner part of a person and how things change and affect it. It is incredible the way that Susan writes and she can really get to you as a reader and challenge your own emotions and the way that you see things in your own life. So many people try to live the life of perfection and it is interesting how they react when things do not quite pan out that way. The questions and changes to the lives of the characters is not what one would expect after reading the book blurb or hearing a summary. There are psychological elements here and they are barely touched upon in the writing, but present non the less. I personally, put this book on the keeper shelf, but recommend that when you read it to have some time available so that you can mull over just what it is that you should take from reading the novel. *This book was provided for review by Waterbrook Multnomah.*

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      White Picket Fences is a beautiful story of family secrets revealed. It is set in the San Diego area, which is always fun to me as that is my home. The Janvier family lives a seemingly perfect life. The mom's (Amanda) brother, Bart, runs off to Poland to uncover family history and leaves his teenage daughter, Tally (Tallulah), with her grandmother who dies shortly after she arrives. She goes to live with the Janviers and becomes close with her cousin Matt. They end up doing a sociology project together and choose their focus to be the Holocaust, of which their family was involved in WWII. The Janviers' marriage is not as stable as it seems. They disagree on a sensitive subject involving Matt's childhood. It is a fairly complicated plot. Susan Meissner did a beautiful job weaving several story lines together, although I thought it felt a bit coincidental at times. If you're looking for a light read, this probably is not it, but it is intriguing and I would certainly recommend it to others.
    • 4/5
      White Picket Fences had quite a bit going on in it. Each part of the story was connected, and it was done very well. The story didn't seem to lose anything, and the connections didn't feel convenient. This book was very well thought out, and was executed very well. I have to applaud Meissner for taking all these seemingly unrelated topics and intertwining them into a very good story. There were parts when the story dragged a little, but for the most part it kept intrigued. My favorite part of the story was the Holocaust survivors telling their story. Not only did it serve a purpose with the plot, but I love to learn about the Holocaust and WWII. What those people survived is unimaginable to me, and how the Nazi's could do that is just beyond me. I don't necessarily gain enjoyment from Holocaust stories, but I feel like knowing these stories may be a step to stopping the hatred that still exists today... But I digress....The story was very well written. I really liked Amanda and Chase. I just connected with Amanda and even when she wasn't a part of the action I felt like I was seeing it through her eyes. Her thoughts and her ideas fell in line with what I think I would have done in her situation. This was a pretty good book, I will be reading her other books in the future.
    • 4/5
      For most of the novel, I couldn't put my finger on it, but found Meissner's writing style nice to read. It took me awhile to analyze, and soon realized that she has a freshness of speech and sentence construction that makes one comfortable to read her work. I can't say if her other novels do this, but I really enjoyed the clarity and tone of her writing.Overall, I enjoyed the novel quite a bit. I wasn't sure about the husband and wife plot, that showed a couple struggling to stay connected through the realities of parenting, but understood that it was meant to show us how stressful raising these troubled teens really was for the parents. The characters were pretty complicated, and I felt constantly confused by Tally's father and his behavior. In the back of the novel, Meissner commented in an interview that in her work with children and families, that she saw all sorts of parents--unconventional and traditional--that were all good parents in their own way. I thought this was interesting, as I readily wanted to write off Tally's father, but Meissner doesn't really allow you to totally dislike him. With all of its complicated characters and plot twists, I found White Picket Fences to be an engaging read, and one I would recommend to friends and family interested in a clean family drama.
    • 5/5
      When Tally's father disappears she is welcomed into the home of her aunt Amanda. She feels like she really belongs there and they believe that they will be able to help her overcome so many things. None of them expect things to turn out the way they did. Instead of helping Tally, they find that old memories and secrets they have let lie are surfacing. As much as they try to shove them away there comes a time when they must be faced. There had been signs all along. Amanda sees her son is troubled and tries to talk with her son about it. Her husband makes excuses for the strange behavior and dismisses his wife's concerns.When Tally, Chase and his best friend prepare to do their project on the holocaust they decide to interview two old men at a nursing home that Chase has met before. As Chase is talking about the opening scene of their video, he lets it be known that to personalize it they will be using Tally's father, who is in Europe looking for relatives who died in the Holocaust. Tally is against this. She won't tell them the real reason that her father is there. These were just a few of the subplots throughout the book. I found it easy to keep all of them separate and at the same time they all tied together.I loved this book. It was all about secrets and how sometimes holding them in and not talking about the issues will eat away at us until there is nothing left. It is also a book of hope that shows there can be forgiveness and healing. I have really fallen in love with the work of Susan Meissner and look forward to reading many more of her books..