The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, by Kim Edwards, was another book that caught my eye at the bookstore and didn’t pan out for me. I don’t know what I was expecting, really. The plot was as advertised: doctor delivers his own babies, and gives away the one that has Down’s syndrome without telling his wife. From there, though, the novel falls flat. The characters are incredibly two-dimensional, and the standard opportunities for redemption and growth aren’t present.

As trite as it might be, I read novels with singularly depressing plots in order to see the characters dig deep, search their souls, struggle, and rise to the challenge. I don’t really need to read novels with singularly depressing plots wherein characters lash out, bury their anger, wallow in their guilt, take their secrets to their graves, and drink their way through their sad lives. Really, I don’t. I kept reading because I had a desire to know what happened — my Achilles heel when it comes to novels, I just can’t bear to not know the end in the vast majority of books I read. Unfortunately, the part of the story that would have been the most engaging — what each of the characters does with the truth once revealed — was only a minimal and sketchily rendered bit at the end. The rest of the novel is about how the concealment of such a core truth ruins lives and relationships. Which can be the basis of a powerful novel, it’s just not the basis of a novel I wanted to read.

In the end, this novel is a sad story of the type I am trying not to read as much of, perfect for wallowing in the knowledge of how sad the world is and how people’s choices mess them up. If that’s your thing, go to town.