Sonja Yoerg writes raw and real characters. Loved this book and cant wait to read others by this author

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for this free readers edition. In exchange I am providing an honest review.

This title, with its story and characters, was a quiet one and in part that's what made it so good. There was something very comforting about the way Yoerg told this story of Carole LaPorte.

It's 1972 and Carole is living a good, simple, and mostly quiet life. I mean, how quiet can it be with 3 children and a husband who runs his own auto repair shop? Still, she's content. But she's also scared. Lately she's been hearing voices and seeing things nobody else can. She's sure she is just stressed and tired, yes that has to be it. Yet...yet her Mother is in a mental institution. She's lived there for years, placed in there by her Father and never been allowed to leave. Mother isn't well in the head and Carole is afraid she has caught it too.

Carole's 11 year old daughter, Alison, needs her Mom right now. Things are happening that she has questions, and concerns, about. But her Mom is acting weird lately. Her Dad says it has to do with being a lady who is getting older but Alison isn't so sure, Mom is acting really strange. Navigating Junior High is hard enough but when Mom is suddenly unavailable Alison is feeling very alone. She found a pretty blue glass box in the attic and is curious about the story it holds so she decides to get some answers to some questions she has had for a long time. Why is her Grandma crazy and living in a mental institution? Why did her Grandpa put her there before he died? Alison starts pressing for the story of her Grandma and Mom and it is through the answers that both Alison and Carole will find what they have been missing.

Yoerg weaves past and present (1972 present) together to tell the story of Carole's Mother. Because to understand that story is to understand the whole story. Yoerg introduces the readers to the onset of a mental illness and how it can be so deceiving. One of the characters I loved the most was Carole's husband. It was 1972 so you have to understand the time period to love him for what he could do with the limited knowledge he had. He was solid, stable, adoring of Carole, and supportive. He really did want the best for his wife and his children and everything he did was motivated by that. I felt for Carole, her fear over her unraveling mind and how it would affect her family, what Mother wouldn't be concerned? Alison, unsure of her place in the family, with her various insecurities made me recall what that time period of my life was like and with life experience under my belt made me want to scoop her up and assure her.

It was a quiet story and one that left me extremely satisfied at the end with the loose ends tied up for Carole and her family.

A beautifully written book about real people. I loved the mother/daughter relationship described- very authentic and made the story relatable. She approaches mental illness in a very delicate but honest way. Really enjoyed this read!

Did not finish. I put this book down about ten percent of the way through. It wasn't a bad book, just wasn't for me. The tone of the story wasn't quite what I was expecting going into it.

I honestly could tell by the writing of the first 2 chapters that it wouldn't be a good fit for our box and had to put it down. I may read it again in the future!

I’ve come to hold Sonja Yoerg novels in very high esteem. They are usually very thought provoking, well written, and real. So naturally when this book came across my desk for review, I was thrilled. Though the description sounded slightly different than something I would expect from Yoerg’s novels…..this one had a magic element which surprised me.

While this was unexpected, I love books with magical realism and magic themes so I was even more excited to read this one than I was her other novels.

Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else.

But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange.

So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother.


An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives (summary from Goodreads).

One of Yoerg’s hallmarks is writing powerful standalone novels that are memorable stories about women and families and this one is no different. But I would hesitate to call her books ‘chick lit’ or ‘women’s fiction’…..her books are so much more than that and I see that other reviews have the same opinion! I love how there is some theme that plays a prominent role in her books, in this one it’s mental health.

This book had hints of ‘magic’ I would actually call it more mysticism than magic. There are hints at things like Tarot cards but not things like casting spells etc. I thought this really set the tone for the novel. I love stories with hints of madness, I normally don’t prefer to be up close and personal with madness in novels in this way, but this one was really well done. I loved trying to understand Solange’s situation and I loved watching Carole’s reaction to Solange.

This is a book about choices and how they impact our lives and the lives of others. This book makes you look at the choices each of the characters makes and examine them live in living color and I LOVED that about this book. This is what what I have come to expect from Yoerg’s novels…..bold is the only word I can use to describe her novels. I love how this book makes the reader look at the decisions made and how they echo through the lives of the characters. It’s very powerful and gripping.

This is a book full of loud, upsetting moments but then quickly followed up with reflections by the characters which the reader can also take in and examine on their own. It’s a novel full of mental illness, love, family, as well as a host of other emotions with three generations of women and how those choices effected each of them.

I loved this book. While it was heavy at times and even made me uncomfortable in some ways, it was thought provoking and intriguing. I found myself frustrated that I didn’t have more time to read because I wanted to glean more from the pages and reflections from the characters. At other times I was glad for a break but yet couldn’t get the book out of my mind and found myself searching it out again. This was a book that had a lot of emotion.

If you haven’t discovered Yoerg’s books, you need to. They are all stand alones and I highly recommend each and every one! I feel like Yoerg’s books are some of the best kept secrets in literature! This one is definitely another winner!

Challenge/Book Summary:

Book: All the Best People by Sonja Yoerg

Kindle Edition, 368 pages
Expected publication: May 2nd 2017 by Berkley Books
ASIN B01H17UB12
Review copy provided by: Publisher/Author in exchange for an honest review
This book counts toward: NA

Hosted by: NA
Books for Challenge Completed: NA
Recommendation: 5 out of 5

Genre: Historical fiction, mystery, family saga

Memorable lines/quotes:

Traveling Sisters Group Read Review

All The Best People by Sonja Yoerg is an intriguing, easy flowing and multi-layered story that is beautifully written that explores family, hope, and acceptance surrounding mental illness through three generations. The story also explores the relationships between mothers and daughters.

Sonja Yoerg does a fantastic job compassionately creating , realistic, conflicted, and complex characters here as we were really able to feel the emotions of all the characters allowing us to open our hearts and drawing us right into their fears, pain, and heartache. She gave us understanding, insight, and compassion into mental illness for families of loved ones as she shines light in the dark far corners of mental illness for all the characters. She gracefully shows us how fast and difficult life can sometimes be. Her descriptions are vivid, insightful and moving.

The story combines four different perspectives which are told in three generations from one family in two timelines from the past of 1926 and present day of 1972. As we first meet Carol we start to see signs of her illness and we were all drawn into her mind and we could hear her thoughts and feel her fears. We meet Solange when she is young and learn her backstory and events leading up to her being committed to an asylum and see how younger Carol deals with the absence of her mother. We learn of past treatment, shedding light on stigma and the treatments given. We also hear from 11-year-old Alison as we see her start to lose her mother when she needs her the most. She tugged and captured our hearts. We admired her strength and perseverance.

We can’t leave this review without mentioning Walt as a few of us had such a book crush on this sweet and genuine character.

We felt a strong connection to some of the characters and it brought quite a bit of insight and personal experiences into our discussions as we were reading this book. We could see a bit of ourselves within this story which for some of us was at times a little emotional and heartfelt. With love, hope, compassion and understanding that shined through within this book and our discussions, we could see who All The Best People are.

Thank you, NetGalley, Berkley Publishing and Sonja Yoerg for a copy to read and review.

DNF.

I tried several times with this book because I really enjoy Sonja Yoerg's novels, but this one just did not click with me for some reason. I didn't leave a review for it on any platform.

http://girlsjustreading.blogspot.com/2017/07/julies-review-all-best-people.html

I love this author because she writes about things every family faces. In this story she writes about mental health and it is told from generation to generation from the women’s points of view. As Carole starts to hear voices she believes that she will have the same fate as her mother who has spent many years in a mental institution. This book starts in the 30s and goes thru several decades showing how this family deals with the stigma associated to this day with mental illness, the fear it can bring out in others as well as family members and the feelings of helplessness that a family can feel when a family member is affected. It shows how the perception of mental illness has changed but it still widely misunderstood. I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

The latest from gifted storyteller Sonja Yoerg, is a touching story of courage and the power of love across three generations of women struggling to come to terms with the impact mental illness has had on them and their families.

Rated 3.5 - ALL THE BEST PEOPLE by Sonja Yoerg is a deep study of illness and its effect on a family. What we did to those who were different in the past is disturbing, which is reflected powerfully in this story. Sonja Yoerg defines regret and acceptance, then joy, through three generations of women who lived it.

Carole Gifford remembers as a ten-year-old, her father telling her that her mother Solange was sent to Underhill State Hospital for a rest. Carole was forced to grow up fast and take responsibility for her baby sister, Janine. Solange currently can’t imagine her daughter Janine as anything but the baby who was torn from her years ago. Now that Carole is married with a family of her own, the questions of her childhood begin to surface. Will history repeat itself, or is there something more?

ALL THE BEST PEOPLE is an absorbing story. Told through the eyes of the women in the family, each has their own version of what happened. There’s a definite line between lower class and the wealthy explored here. I couldn’t help but be invested in the outcome for these characters, hoping that happiness would finally be theirs.

This is the first book I’ve read by Sonja Yoerg and I immediately ordered another while reading this one. I loved the way the mystery of Carole’s experience unraveled while telling other characters’ stories as well.

I was disappointed by the end of this book because it felt rushed and inconclusive. Not that the story wasn’t concluded in a satisfactory manner, because I did enjoy it. But I wanted to know more about Carole’s life. It seemed sewed up too quickly and we get to see her future, but I wanted more details about her adaptation. Maybe there was too much emphasis on her mother, which left Carole a bit of a mystery. And Janine – what happened to her? She was such a neurotic, evil person that I wasn’t sure if I missed her wrap-up, or if it was left unsaid.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this novel’s emotional journey, but I wanted more situations clarified in the end. Perhaps there’s a sequel planned? I’m looking forward to reading HOUSE BROKEN, the next book by Sonja Yoerg on my TBR pile.

Review by Dorine, courtesy of The Zest Quest.

All the Best People is a multi-generational story of a family dealing with schizophrenia. This is a heartbreaking tale about a grandmother, in a mental institution, her daughter, who begins to question her sanity, and a granddaughter, who wants to help.

This is a beautiful look into the lives of those with mental illness and those who love them. This is beautifully written. I highly recommend it.

Set primarily in the early 1970s, All the Best People by Sonja Yoerg centers around Carole, a loving mother of three, a wife helping run her husband's car repair garage and the oldest daughter of a woman who has spent the last three-and-a-half decades locked in a mental institution. When Carole begins hearing voices, the fear that she is following in her mother's footsteps is more than she can stand. Having seen first hand what happens to people who lose their grip on reality, Carole's only option is to pretend it isn't happening to her and to hide it as best she can. Carole's young daughter, Alison, sees that something is wrong with her mother, but she can't understand what is happening. Though she wants to help and tries talking to her father and her aunt about it, Alison feels helpless.

This book is an interesting exploration of family dynamics, the barriers that often exist between rich and poor, especially in the years following the Great Depression, and the realities of mental illness in a time when so little was understood about it. Told in the three perspectives of Carole, her mother Solange, and Alison, we also see three different time periods. We meet Solange when she is young and are allowed to watch as events lead up to her commitment to the nearby mental hospital. We see Carole as a young child forced to deal with the loss of her mother in a situation that she can't understand and of which no one will speak, let alone explain. And we see Alison leaving childhood, becoming a young woman and not having the motherly support she needs. Written in such a beautiful way, I was touched by not just the words Yoerg used, but their rhythm. For instance, this section when Carole is hearing voices:

Voices pursued her. She couldn't make out the words and was almost inside the side that was in not the side that was out inside out like a sock pulled off in a hurry. Keep your insides in. Keep your outsides out. Sounded simple simple Simon Simon says touch your nose touch your head. Touched head. Dead.

The first section I encountered like this briefly confused me, but it took only a moment for me to find the pace and to understand that the author was bringing the reader into Carole's madness, sharing her thoughts with us. That is what I enjoyed about this book. There were a few characters that seemed almost unnecessary to the story, characters that might make sense if they had more development. There were a few tangents I wish she had explored more deeply, but overall I really liked this book. This isn't a light, easy read (it does focus on mental illness, after all), but neither is it too heavy. Interesting and beautifully written, this is a book I think you would enjoy.

All the Best People is a new novel by Sonja Yoerg is the story of Carole LaPorte and her family. Carole is forty-four years old, married and has three children. Lately, Carole has been having trouble concentrating and she has been hearing things (that people are mocking her, talking behind her back, the cat is evil). Carole is afraid to tell her husband about her troubles for fear of ending up in Underhill State Hospital like her mother, Solange Gifford. Alison, Carole’s daughter, can tell something is wrong with her mother, but no one will listen to her. She tries to find another way to help her mother. Alison is becoming a young woman and needs her mother’s love and guidance. Janine, Carole’s younger sister, is a widow and has her eyes on Greg Bayliss, Alison’s teacher, as her new husband. Then April Honeycutt, the new special education teacher, and Greg start spending time together. Janine is not going to let April take away her prize. Solange has been in Underhill since she was thirty-four years old. Her husband, Osborn had her committed after the birth of Janine leaving the girls in the care of his sisters. Carole continues to get worse and starts withdrawing from her family. Pick up All the Best People to find out what happens with Carole, how Solange ended up in Underhill, and if Janine gets her man.

All the Best People shows how mental illness can affect a family and not just one generation. The story is told from Carole, Janine, Alison, and Solange’s point-of-view. The book takes us back to when Solange agreed to marry Osborn. Solange came from river people in Burlington, Vermont and Osborn from the upper class. This pairing is doomed right from the beginning. A trial case of Ploof v. Putnam divides Osborn and Carole as well as the citizens of Burlington. The changing viewpoints made it difficult to get into the story. I wish the story had been told from third person. The pace of the book slowed down considerably during Solange’s story which I did not enjoy. How Solange ended up in Underhill was a necessary part of the story. However, it was predictable by delving into the division of the classes. I knew where the story would go as soon as the read that Solange and Osborn were from different sections of town. I give All the Best People 2 out of 5 stars. The book is full of unlikeable characters. The only person I found endearing was Lester. I found information to be repeated often throughout the story and the ending was a letdown. A blue box and a pearl figure prominently into the story, but I did not get why (except to represent water). The blurb for the story hints at magic, but the only magic is Alison reading spells from books (there was a definite lack of supervision). I was never able to get into the All the Best People. I did like some of the references to shows and items from the 70s (I was a little girl in the 70s). The author handles the serious issue of mental illness very well. She showed how mental illness was treated in the late 30s and in the 70s. All the Best People was not the right novel for me, but I do recommend Ms. Yoerg’s House Broken.

A book that takes a personal dive into mental health and as I don't have a lot of personal experience with mental health with me or those close to me, I enjoyed this look into how it affects not only the person personally but also the family that surrounds them.

Beyond the interesting things to learn and read about about mental health, I loved that the book was set not in our current day. It may be weird to say but I enjoyed reading about the current state of affairs of health care for mental health patients in 1970s and to see the progress. I think it was more clear to see how Carole's mother was diagnosed and treated and the juxtaposition between her, Carole and how we know today's patients are treated.

I am a huge Sonja Yoerg fan and love that each of her books are unique, but all still feel like they came from the same author. The way her books flow just seems effortless and I say that in the most complimenting way possible! It is easy to fall into her story and I will say that all of her books that I have read have been ones that were hard to put down because I just wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Solange came from a relatively poor family, a French Catholic family, was raised on a house boat. She falls in love and marries a member of the Protestant elite, and for a while things are fine. They have a daughter, Carole that they both adore but then things fall apart. There is a court case, Ploof vs. Putnam, a case that actually happened, a case that puts the haves against the have not, a case that will highlight the difference of background in their marriage. This will have a dire effect on Solvang's future and those of the two daughters she bore.

Mental illness, in the past and the present. This story takes place from the twenties to the seventies and shows the differing treatments and reasons for commitment. In the present, Carole is hearing voices, her mothers mental illness a very real fear, but the outcome would be markedly different. Allison, Carole's daughter, eleven years old tries to help her mother, sees something is wrong but doesn't understand exactly what to do. She is a wonderful character, so brave and full of love.

A stunning novel of family, mothers and daughters, mental illness, the eugenics movement and in Carole's family, a great deal of love. The writing is tender, expressive and poignant. Deals with real problems, the stigma and fear when presented with a mental illness, and the strength they take for all involved, to overcome. What was allowed to happen in the past was terrifying, but the future in this book has much promise.

ARC from publisher and Netgalley.

If you are looking for a realistic fiction novel that will tug at your heartstrings, then look no further! This novel is a heartwrenching portrayal on mental illness and family ties. Told from the perspective of the females in the family, we see how the actions of one person can lead to dramatic consequences in the lives of others. This novel also switches in timeline and gives a very strong backstory for Carole and Solange. The writing is great and the story is emotional, albeit ordinary. It took me quite a while to get into the story - it might have just been that I wasn't in the mood for a realistic fiction, but I found the beginning to be quite slow. However, the novel quickly picked up its pace and explored the facets of characters who I soon became invested in. Overall, this is a strong realistic fiction novel that deals with mental illness and family tragedy in a superb way to deliver an emotionally-packed story.

This review was posted in time for a Mother's Day post - it worked well with celebrating the relationships between Mothers & Daughters.

My link to the Literary Hoarders site is here and below. http://www.literaryhoarders.com/4-star-rating/two-mothers-day-reads-all-the-best-people-a-full-bloom/
This was also posted to our Facebook, Twitter and reviewed on Litsy. It was also part of a list created on Riffle Books: https://discussions.rifflebooks.com/t/mother-daughter-relationships/1345

Excellent read. The characters were intriguing and interesting. Mental illness is not an easy topic to write about but this book tackled the subject. Hard to believe years ago husbands could commit wives without the women having a say. Interesting perspective. I liked the story flow and the viewpoints of the main characters. Seeing things from their side was very interesting. Hard book to put down.