Lifesaving for Beginners Readalong Week 2

Shhh... don't tell anyone but I am actually writing the start of this post on Thursday night, even though I am not going to post it until probably Tuesday. Why am I doing that you might ask. Because I really want to be able to go and pick up the book and keep reading until I am finished! I am finding the book very, very readable and very difficult to put down.

So in this week's discussion we are very much in the meat of the book so

**************Spoilers Ahoy*******************

So the book did go where I thought it was going to go when I read last week's section. While it was pretty obvious, I did enjoy the reveal and the way that Kat stayed true to character even if that means that she behaves badly in the eyes of other people. Kat takes much longer than you or I might to process her feelings and doesn't cope well with emotional ambushes -something I think we have seen time and time again through the book.

I thought Faith was incredibly brave to just turn up in Ireland at Kat's parents, and it was the first time that I felt that we got to see anything much personality wise of her parents. I did enjoy the reunion between Faith and Kat's parents.I am not sure I would have run off to Ireland the way she did, and especially not with Milo in tow, but it turned out that he really was the catalyst that made so many of the connections for Faith.

My heart broke for young Kat as we found out how the adoption came about. I can't imagine not realising that you were pregnant, although I guess if you were a completely innocent 15 year old you could deny the obvious. As for Kat's parent being unaware, I can see how that would be happen. When I had my son I took him into my workplace and the receptionist (who I saw most days) asked me if I had been on holidays at which point I held up the baby capsule to show her my bundle of joy and she hadn't even realised that I was pregnant! I do suspect though, that it wasn't so much that Kat wasn't showing much but rather that her parents were just too distracted by whatever it was that they were doing to notice.

The birth scene broke my heart. Kat's mother turned up not even knowing that her daughter was pregnant and suddenly took control. There was no discussion, no options put forward. The baby was just whisked away with Kat not even knowing if she had a daughter or a son. One thing that I found confronting was the fact that as a family, Kat and her parents never ever spoke about the baby again. In her discussion post, Bree has identified denial and doing the right thing as two of the big themes of this section of the book and if you want just one example of it, then this would be it.

The moment when Thomas finds out about Faith was interesting for me. I understand completely why his feelings were hurt about this but I also wondered if given a little bit of time to digest the news he wouldn't see that this is how Kat deals with all the biggest issues in her life. Denial, repression and yet more denial.

And how about Thomas? I must say I think he moved on way too quickly and I lost a teeny bit of respect for him when he told Kat the news that he was engaged to someone else. I am sure in the end everything will work out, but there is a bit of a journey to happen here.

I have now finished the book, but I will hold off on discussing the end of the book until next week's discussion post is up! The fact that I have already requested my next Ciara Geraghty novel from the library will possibly give you some clue as to my final reaction about the book!