The Most Fun We Ever Had - by Claire Lombardo

I borrowed this novel about Chicago from the library to read during my recent Thanksgiving trip to the Windy City. It tells the tale of the Sorenson family: Marilyn and David and their four daughters (Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace). There is quite a bit of drama between the sisters, and a fair bit of secrecy. But love wins out in the end.

Of course loving families use the library, and we know that the Sorenson's do so from the start. Even sleep-deprived, Marilyn knows to take her two-month old to the library. And like many new mothers she is sure that all the others are better at parenting than she is. She recounts this episode to her husband

I saw this woman at the library today with three kids and the youngest was about Wendy's age and she looked so - competent. And there I was wandering around the new fiction, not even awake, really, and I realized when I got home that I had too many buttons open on my shirt and you could see my whole bra, and I feel like I have this smell about me - do you smell it?

It's clear that trips to the library have become de rigueur by the time third child Liza is born. "The librarian asked me if I'd gotten myself pregnant again. She said she's been noticing that I'm gaining weight" Marilyn tells David by way of explaining that she wants to move from Iowa City back to Chicago, to her childhood home because she just doesn't get out much.

It's swell that the librarian knows the family so well, but really, everyone, never assume anyone is pregnant. And never ask. If someone wants you to know they will tell you.

Adult Violet clearly took her children to the library from a young age as well. She uses a story about a bear keeping a surprise party a secret that they'd heard at story hour as a simile for keeping their new-found half brother (whom Violet gave up for adoption fifteen years prior) a secret from the busybody Shady Oaks moms. Violet's reunion with her birth son (Jonah) is super awkward. She realizes how dull her life is when she drives him through her neighborhood and points out things like her children's school and the Little Free Library for which she helped fund raise. Jonah, who grew up mostly in foster care, also spent some time at Lathrop House (a group home). A place that could use some new iPads for the computer lab and "contemporary books for the library." 

When youngest daughter Grace realizes she is broke, crushing hard on Ben the barista, and, therefore, preoccupied with sex she makes use of the library to "surreptitiously" borrow D.H. Lawrence, Catulus, and Lolita.

Irish twins Wendy and Violet have a long-standing rivalry. Wendy is especially adept at pushing Violet's buttons and decides to give her grief about breastfeeding in front of Wendy - in her own home! "Oh my God, Violet, you have a guest." Wendy taunts. Violet "glanced down at the baby as though she were doing something workaday and normal, filling her gas tank or renewing her library books." Yes, that's because nursing your baby is as perfectly normal as putting gas in your car, or using the library. Don't even get me started.