Review: Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

Glitter and Glue

by Kelly Corrigan

Publisher: Ballantine Book

Pages: 224

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  When Kelly Corrigan was in high school, her mother neatly summarized the family dynamic as “Your father’s the glitter but I’m the glue.” This meant nothing to Kelly, who left childhood sure that her mom—with her inviolable commandments and proud stoicism—would be nothing more than background chatter for the rest of Kelly’s life, which she was carefully orienting toward adventure. After college, armed with a backpack, her personal mission statement, and a wad of traveler’s checks, she took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting.
 
But it didn’t turn out the way she pictured it. In a matter of months, her savings shot, she had a choice: get a job or go home. That’s how Kelly met John Tanner, a newly widowed father of two looking for a live-in nanny. They chatted for an hour, discussed timing and pay, and a week later, Kelly moved in. And there, in that house in a suburb north of Sydney, 10,000 miles from the house where she was raised, her mother’s voice was suddenly everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked. Every day she spent with the Tanner kids was a day spent reconsidering her relationship with her mother, turning it over in her hands like a shell, straining to hear whatever messages might be trapped in its spiral.

Kritters Thoughts:  A memoir by Kelly Corrigan where she goes back in time after her college years, when she is living in Australia and becomes a nanny at a home where the mother has died and the kids and the father are trying to pick up the pieces.  Living in a home where the mother is absent makes her think back to her childhood of the impact her mom had on her life.  I could call this book a love story to the mother/daughter relationship.  

I absolutely adored this book.  Probably because I have a very close relationship with my mom and my sister does also and its fun that my sister and I who are polar opposites can each have a close relationship with our mom in such different ways - I love it!  

I loved the title Glitter and Glue.  It is explained early on that Kelly's mom said she was the glue that held the family and her dad was the glitter that got to come in and sprinkle around, but wasn't there consistently.  Let me start by saying I love my dad and he was attentive and was there for every dance recital, but my mom was the one that took us to each dance class.  Dad did more than glitter, but mom was the glue!  

I loved reading about another mom/daughter duo and the ups and downs of that relationship.  I also loved reading how her thoughts about that relationship changed after she had left her house and was no longer needing the discipline of that relationship.

I would love to read more in this genre, it was a perfect warm and fuzzy and reflective book.


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Ebook 2018 Challenge: 10 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.