Magic Hour

Author: Kristin Hannah

Who Picked the Book: All of Us

One-sentence summary: A disgraced child psychiatrist and her small town cop sister work hard to piece together the story of a non-verbal, feral child found in their remote hometown.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8

Our favorite thing about it: The story and characters were fascinating and likeable.

Our least favorite thing about it: The ending was a little speedy compared to the pacing of the rest of the book. 

Main Topics of Discussion: Families of Origin, Individual Experiences, Psychiatry, Culpability, Sense of Self, Healing, Self Awareness

Our favorite quote: "Love rips the shit out of you and puts you back together like a broken toy, with all kinds of cracks and edges. It's not about the falling in love. It's about the landing, the staying where you said you'd be and working to keep the love strong."

Notes: We really liked this book. Almost all of us rated it an 8. We felt like the story and the characters were solid. The story built relationships at an appropriate and believable pace and really took the time to introduce even the minor characters well. The plot moved slowly in places, but that just emphasized the actual slowness of the sister's progress with Alice. And then, the ending sped up. Really, this is just a minor quibble, but the pacing is definitely different in the last few chapters compared to the rest of the book. 

We enjoyed talking about the sibling relationship between Julia and Ellie. It was so interesting to see how their joint childhood memories and experiences were so different despite growing up in the same household. We find this to be absolutely true for us as well. The fact that neither one understood the challenges of the other also rang true. We loved how they found their way back together while helping Alice. 

We talked about how Ellie goes through a transformation because she learns to analyze herself. Others help her on this journey and could be a little hard on her at times - at least in our option. We thought it was unrealistic of Cal to expect Ellie to read his mind and know he loved her. We felt like he should not have been mad about that. He should have spoken up. We liked her character growth, though. 

And Julia grew as well. She could also be selfish - making Alice's treatment about her and her success rather than just helping Alice. Although, she did definitely want to do that the whole time. She learned about Ellie too and about how she had to believe in herself despite the opinions of others. For her character, we discussed how much therapists should be held responsible for their patients' actions. And we decided it was pretty much zero. 

We discussed how the early years for Alice were trauma and fear and how that might impact her entire life. It was interesting how a sense of self, a name, safety, and trust were all themes of her treatment. We found all of that fascinating. 

Memorable Meeting Moments: We were in Colorado! And we celebrated Dara's 50th Birthday!

What We Ate:  The meeting didn't take place around a meal, as usual. But on this Colorado trip, we had chili and cornbread, bacon and cinnamon rolls or monkey bread, grilled cheese and tomato soup - those are the highlights!