The Truth About Parallel Lines

I myself wonder sometimes how it is that I choose the books that I read. Oh I know what genres I like. I know what authors I prefer but what is that elusive something that tells me that yes this is the book that I need to read right now. This is the book that I cannot put down because I am so pleasantly immersed in the plot and the wonderful three dimensional characters. A lot of the time it's the plot. Like in this case but for me specifically in this book it's the first line and that rarely ever happens so when it does I know I am in for a very special treat and Jill D. Block didn't disappoint. This book meanders and it weaves here and there giving you glimpses of the lives of others while keeping Jenna firmly in the front as the main character. I don't give out spoilers but definitely pre order this book. You'll thank yourself for ordering this gem of a book and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of a fabulous career for this amazing author. Happy reading!

While reading this book, I found that I really grew to care about the characters and how all their lives intersected. I enjoyed how you were not only drawn into their stories, but also how they truly felt about the things happening in their lives. This is definitely a book I’d choose for book club. There are many aspects to this book which could lead to in depth discussions. I strongly recommend.

I have always enjoyed books that track the lives of women as they intertwine throughout a period of time and this was no exception. I did wish they delved a bit deeper into the emotional vulnerability of Chloe especially with what she went through as she appeared a bit stilted and closed off. Overall, it was well written and an enjoyable read.

Wow! This book was amazing! I read this in one sitting, it was that good. The author did such a great job of making you feel invested in the characters and how they intersected with each other. Character driven books are my favorites and this was definitely one that I will be recommending to friends.

'I guess I had been imagining it for a long time. After almost four years, I felt like I was a part of their family. I wished I was. And really, who could blame me?'

Jenna likes to tell stories, in fact she’s incredibly talented when it comes to fiction. Her skill is a gift that opens doors for her when she writes a story, The Adventures of Peanut Girl, for the little girl (Chloe) she babysits, one that happens to be the daughter of her pretend married boyfriend, John. She has problems within her own family when her parent’s split apart, enter Deirdre (or as her mother likes to call her, Jenna’s father’s ‘midlife crisis’). Life is complicated when lives running parallel begin to intersect. Deirdre is meant to remain simply the harlot, the evil other woman, but Deirdre in reality is more than just Andrew’s kept woman. She is a hardworking doctor, a sister to an exciting but exhausting twin brother (he also has a heavy story). She is also the catalyst for the hatred growing inside Joanne, one that damages the relationship between Jenna and her mother. She may be with Andrew, but ‘for Jenna’s sake’ he better keep that part of his life seperate if he wants to remain in his daughter’s life.

Jenna’s loyalty is constantly under scrutiny from her heartbroken mother, distraught by her husband’s betrayal. Maybe in a healthy world we all should try to bridge the poisonous distance rejection and cheating creates, and it’s easy with clear heads watching from the outside to see how anger takes its toll on the child, stuck in the middle, loving both parents, hunkering for stability. Unless it’s you harboring the wounded animal heart, dealing with the turbulence of your emotions that make you selfish and bitter, it’s easy to believe in embracing change, rising above the torment of your pain for the sake of your child. Women and men do it all the time, swallow their pride, attempt the grin and bear it approach and remain civil for the sake of the children’s emotional well-being. Then there is the other side, those who are stuck in fury and use the child as a pawn, whether intentionally or not. Jenna is caught up in the maelstrom of her mother’s wounded pride. The other woman is enough to make her spit nails, but what happens when Jenna begins to like Deirdre? How sick is it to pretend she doesn’t exist, that her father is meant to compartmentalize his love life from his family life? Is she meant to remain a phantom presence for all eternity just to spare her mother’s feelings, while Jenna is used as the reason? It isn’t long before Jenna herself mirrors Deirdre and her father’s relationship. She will understand all too well the obstacles and difficulties Deirdre dealt with in coming between a family.

Chloe’s mother has always shadowed her and to her father John’s mind, is a big reason he decides to remain married to Mara. Mara doesn’t have the sort of skin required for moving on, for abrupt changes, for divorce. John had been down that road before with his first wife Vivian and their boys. But there is something different, some hole inside of Mara that refuses to let go. The reader catches of glimpse of the cold, overbearing Mara as Jenna ‘pokes around’ their home, as she becomes intimately close with the family, even vacationing with them, mentored in a sense by John. But the story isn’t really about the men, who they love or don’t love, nor who remains the wife and who is the invisible lover. The women have pasts that color all of their relationships. Mara is coming undone, but Chloe is drifting further away, no longer feeling that mother/daughter bond.

Jenna thought her time waiting for love would be rewarded, and never imagined the ending fate created for her love story. When she begins to move on, her mother is always the one obstacle that cannot detach from the pain of the past, preventing even the simplest joys with her stubborn refusal to let go of her resentments. No one can imagine that her pain was set during her own childhood that began with the death of her own mother. Jenna keeps her secrets close too, messing up her new love with omissions, so as not to face the past she is trying to forget. Both are more similar than they know, trying to ignore painful points in their lives, yet unaware how much it affects the present.

Chloe (the peanut girl) comes of age and finds herself on the outside too, a ‘invisible woman’ but for a different reason than an affair. She is forbidden, an unaccepted shame to her lover’s family. Every relationship in this novel is complicated. Mara is deeply troubled, numb and disconnected in some ways and overly involved in others. Jenna is the main character who starts as a fanciful romantic teenager likely stunted by her own mother’s reaction to the break in her marriage, maybe John is a way of rebelling or maybe love is genuine, maybe she conjured a love story into being? But her little game with her friends sets the pace for her entire adulthood where men are concerned.

People are messy, love can build and destroy and it really never will be “just the two of us”. Everyone is affected by a love story, more often than not as obstacles because love never really runs smoothly. The women are more alike than they are different, each with unhealthy sides as much as strong ones. Some drag their pain like a dead horse behind them. Most secrets aren’t as hidden as they think. Some use secrets to keep people out, like Chloe with her demanding needy mother and others to shield others from pain but regardless of their reasons, it always hurts someone, mostly themselves. Each woman in this novel is as important as the other, be they the wife, daughter, lover, or enemy. Perfect for a book club and I know women, regardless of their ages, will not relate to the same characters, will champion one and damn the other. I don’t want to ruin the secrets. Provocative.

publication Date: June 4, 2018

Montague Street Press

I’ve read more of Lawrence Block’s books than I can count – he’s a writer I much admire. In one anthology of short stories he edited (Alive in Shape and Colour) I came across a tale by Jill D. Block; LB’s daughter, it transpired. Her story intrigued me and so I was delighted to get my hands on her first full length novel. This isn’t a hardboiled crime novel of the type that her father has trotted out with much success over the years, instead it’s a story of a group of people and how their lives, their travails and their successes play out and intersect over the period of some 30 years.

Jenna is a storyteller who once came up with The Adventures of Peanut Girl to entertain Chloe, a young girl she was babysitting. Chloe’s dad John is kind and dapper and Jenna is drawn to pretend to her friends that he’s her secret boyfriend. Jenna’s mum, Joanne, is struggling to overcome her angst and anger at her husband, Andrew, having left her for his ‘midlife crisis’ girlfriend, Deirdre. And Deirdre is a hardworking doctor with a twin brother who has significant challenges of his own. These and others make up the cast of this book.

There are a lot of characters here and I found myself regularly checking back to remind myself who each of them were, as the focus of the story chopped from one to the other. There’s also the fact that there were regular jumps in time (sometimes a few years) as the narrative wove its way through three decades of affairs, career changes, deaths, marriages and the rest. This could have become taxing to the point of distraction but, in truth, I’d become invested in the outcomes for these people and I really wanted to know how things developed.

I suppose you could characterise this as chic-lit – I’m not sure, it’s not a genre I’m particularly familiar with – but I’d prefer to think that it’s just a well told story of how events in life can affect others as much as they impact you. It provided food for thought and reflection as well as the pure entertainment of reading an interesting story. It’s a book I was certainly glad to spend some time with.

I thought this was a very solid story regarding coming of age and finding yourself. I like how the story progresses through the years of the main character, as well, as those she meets throughout her life. I do recommend given this book a read!

Absolutely wonderful book. It is a fun, engaging read. The story following different characters, so you get to know everyone. Each story crosses paths with the other character and it always comes back to a logical point so you don't have that awkward, loose ends feeling. Every character is relatable and while you might not like everything they say & do, you can't help, but like them. I highly recommend this book.

Jenna is a natural storyteller and makes up stories for Chloe the young girl that she babysits, whilst pretending that she is having an affair with Chloe's father. Jenna's own family are in crisis as her father is having an affair with Deidre. The story follows the lives of these characters over 30 years and how their lives run in parallel lines

A good story, although I did get a bit confused at times over the different characters and jumping timelines, their lives were interesting and it was good to follow them over such a long period. I will definitely look out for future books by this author

What a lovely read, I wished it would never end, I could have heard the character's stories forever! Things you thought could never happen are made to, in a realistic, touching and beautifully human way

For a story that included plot points that I don't usually care for - multiple cases of infidelity and distracted mothers who play victim at the expense of their children's development - and spread itself really thin in the way it attempted to capture multiple perspectives over more than three decades, and fit everything in less than 250 pages, for all of the reasons I thought this was would be too much, I must say I really enjoyed The Truth About Parallel Lines byJill D. Block. Instead of playing to tropes, I felt like the author took odious situations and characterized them, showed the real grit that can be experienced through female friendship, demonstrated how messy things can get when you have irresponsible people around, and yet how we can work through the miss when we're imbued by the strength we get from the people who stand with us.
This was marketed as a story of three women, love after loss, triumph over tragedy, and the friendships that sustain them and all of that was true, yet some of what should've been major characters paled in comparison with other stand-out stars. Despite the time lapses between their appearances, Jenna's friends are more intuitive than their years and they call her out on her bad decisions. Deidre's twin speaks through her, and some of Chloe's secrets start to define her, yet what is fascinating is how these flaws make such a riveting read. There was much to admire about the complex portrayal of a young woman who simultaneously becomes someone's dream and nightmare and watching the progress of the characters' lives as the ripples from their actions seem to wane but thrum in the wake long afterwards, created a slow build up that kept me interested until the last page. For a story that covered the decades including 9/11, I wasn't surprised to see the attacks mentioned but I didn't think the inclusion added anything to this particular story and it could have done without it, and at least one character's death could have been eliminated from this novel... or maybe that's me nitpicking at a book that I enjoyed so let me just leave it at this.
The Truth About Parallel Lines was fun to read and I think you should definitely give it a try too if you can. Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this book and for Jill D Block for writing a warm story about real issues. I gave it a 4 star rating and recommend it highly.