Family Ties

I read Family Ties because I found myself in an airport without a book to take onto the plane.  Having never read anything by Danielle Steel, I hoped this book would be an absorbing page-turner that would make the flight pass quickly.  WRONG!  Family Ties was predictable and repetitive and contained no pithy truths about family relationships. 

The premise of Family Ties is that we all need family relationships much more than we think we do.  This should not come as news to most people.  The novel revolves around Annie Ferguson, who raised her sister's three children after her sister died.  The children are now young adults and embarking on their own lives.  Annie finally has time to build a life of her own, despite struggling with a bad case of empty nest syndrome.  The book follows Annie and her nieces and nephew as they explore the various options life offers them.  In the end, they all realize they still need each other. 

My main gripe was that Ms. Steel kept repeating so many of her points so often.  She obviously thought I wouldn't "get it" if she didn't spell it out for me...  over and over and over.  The 348-page book could have been 100 pages shorter if all the repetition had been removed. 

Danielle Steel has written about 85 novels as well as some non-fiction and children's books.  She has sold more than 800 million copies of her books worldwide and holds the distinction of being the bestselling author alive today.  (See the Wikipedia links for the source of those statistics.)  Nevertheless, I'm afraid I'm not one of her fans.  In fact, reading Family Ties has cured me of wanting to read any more of Danielle Steel's books.

Next time, if I don't have a book to take onto the plane, I'll watch the movie -- or sleep.


To see blog posts about other books I've read, click HERE. 


© 2011, Linda Mason Hood
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