Meet the Austins by Madeline L'Engle

from goodreads

3 stars

Long weekends always mess up my internal calendar. Even though I knew it was Tuesday, it felt like a Monday. So when I thought about doing my post, I kept saying to myself, "I don't have to do it today, I don't need to post it until tomorrow." Well, now the day is almost over and it has finally sunk in that I have a post to get up.

Does that happen to you when you have a long weekend or holidays? Does your rhythm get all messed up?

Now that being said, I love long weekends. I love it when my husband gets to spend more time with us and help deal with the crazies. And by crazies I mean children, and by help deal with I mean have fun and spend quality time.

This weekend was family day so we put up drywall, went tobogganing with some friends and then watched a movie. It was lovely and low-key. Those are the best kinds of long weekends.

Synopsis

The Austins are a fun family that live in rural New England. When a girl named Maggie is sent to stay with them after her father died things get to be a little more crazy, but they have fun and love each other.

My Thoughts

I love Madeline L'Engle books. I had never heard of this series before but I am glad I was able to enter the world of the Austin's for a little while.

This does not read like your typical novel. It is more snippets into a year in the life of the Austins. So, I guess it is like a collection of short stories that surrounds the family.

I love the sense of family that oozes from the pages. They seem to have fun and love each other, though they get annoyed with each other too. They are real, not an idealistic fantasy. I love the setting of the big farm house set in the middle of nowhere. If money were no object and I could live in any setting, that would be it. An old farm house with enough sunny land for a garden and a nice forest patch for walking through.

Because there was really no narration or climax the book did lack a bit of energy. It was a nice read, a quaint read, but nothing that would get you too excited. And to be honest, there is nothing wrong with books like that. We need books like that once in a while to cleanse our reading palettes. So don't go into this book to think you will be thoroughly entertained, or that it will be supremely gripping.

This is the first of a series of books about the Austins. I will probably peruse their life every now and again, but I am not in a big hurry to do so.