"Another Piece of My Heart" by Jane Green

Andi felt blessed when at the age of thirty-seven, she finally found the perfect man.  Ethan is an amazing husband and devoted father to his two daughters, Emily and Sophia.  Andi was thrilled to become step-mother to the two girls and accepted them as her own.  But Andi struggled to accept the fact that she may never have children of her own.  Her dream of motherhood and raising a child may never come true.

Complicating the situation is teenager Emily.  She sees Andi as an obstacle to her father's love and she will do everything she can to break up the family dynamic.  Just when it looks like Andi cannot handle the rebellion anymore and Emily may have won, a crisis hits the family.  The two find themselves at a crossroads, with everything they ever believed about family and motherhood coming into question.  

Another Piece Of My Heart by Jane Green is a sweet novel about love, family and motherhood.  It raises the question of what happens when you find everything you have ever wanted, but one thing stands in the way of pure happiness.  This is a book that hits the nail on the head for so many issues that exist in families today - blended families, teenage rebellion, infertility.

Jane Green does an excellent job of setting up the family dynamic, introducing all of the characters, their struggles and their joys.  Andi is a character that instantly draws you in.  I do feel that the rest of the characters were somewhat glossed over, the reasons for their behaviour not fully developed.  The storyline is pretty standard fare, nothing out of the ordinary for this type of novel.  And keeping with this, while the story does pick up toward the end of the novel and really pull you in, it ends up being wrapped up in a nice neat package which most likely wouldn't happen as smoothly in real life.

My biggest criticism of the book is I just didn't like how it went back and forth between Emily and Andi's point of view, one in the first person and one in the third person.  That being said, this is still a book that is good to curl up with or relax in a hot bath with.  It's an easy and quick read, you won't find yourself losing interest but you may walk away from it at the end not feeling very many emotions.  And that's okay with this book.