Long Island by Colm Tóibín

genre: historical fiction

Eilis Lacey's life in America has been a good one.  Since leaving Ireland behind, she's had two children with her husband Tony, she has found a job she enjoys and soon her kids will be out of the nest.  But then a stranger at the door drops news into Eilis's life that will upend all of it:  Tony has had an affair.  To find space for her broken heart, Eilis looks back to the land of her youth and books a trip to Ireland.  If only the reality of "home" could always be the same as our memories of it.  

I genuinely enjoyed Brooklyn, the book that tells Eilis's story of arriving in America.  I even was able to fall into caring for her right at the beginning of this book, her distress at what's happened to her marriage, her trying to figure out boundaries and make hard decisions.  I also like the cast of characters in Ireland, I was definitely engaged in the story.  But the end was such a disappointment.  It almost felt like a joke. Even if there is going to be another book I don't know if I'd read it.  It was such a web of a love triangle and to have it just all get dropped link a pint of Guinness on the pub floor without any resolution felt like I'd been tricked.