Review: I’d Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos

 

Title: I’d Give Anything

Author: Marisa de los Santos

Published: May 12th 2020, William Morrow

Status: Read May 2020, courtesy William Morrow/Edelweiss

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My Thoughts:

I’d Give Anything is a contemporary stand alone novel from Marisa de los Santos, best known for her ‘Love Walked In’ series.

“…sometimes families and worlds, no matter how careful everyone is, no matter how much love, fall apart and there’s not a thing you…can do to stop it.”

As a teenager Ginny Beale imagined that her future would be extraordinary, buoyed by her ‘forever’ friends, Kirsten, C.J., and Gray, she would take risks, have wild adventures, and create art to gift to the world, until tragedy left her dreams in ashes. Two decades later her staid life as a suburban wife and mother falls apart when her husband, Harris, is fired amid a scandal involving a young woman barely older than their daughter, and just days later her terminally ill mother suicides. Forced to reimagine her future in the midst of this upheaval, Ginny is offered a way to reconnect with the girl she once was, and perhaps reclaim all that she lost.

I’d Give Anything is told through diary entries, and the perspectives of Ginny and her fifteen year old daughter, Avery. This is a story that focuses on relationships – those between parent and child, siblings, between lovers, and friends – and explores the limits of their resilience. It features themes of loss, regret, forgiveness, redemption and the courage it takes to be honest with the ones we love.

Santos infuses her main characters with nuance, truth and emotion, and while in frame her minor characters such as Ginny’s mother, Adel, and Gray receive the same treatment.

However I thought the story was a bit messy in places. I felt that the central plot involving the fire that separated teenage Ginny from her brother and friends was well handled, but that ultimately Harris was superfluous in Ginny’s story, and I think this creates flaws in both character and plot which affected my engagement.

In the end my feelings about I’d Give Anything are mixed, which is a shame as I have really enjoyed several of her previous novels which I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

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