I was pretty invested in the first half of the book when I realized the main character, Vivian, was telling a story to Angela but I couldn't remember why. The story was going in all sorts of directions. I went back to refresh myself and the entire book is an answer to Angela's question, "How did you know my father?" GEEZ. I thought Vivian's life story was interesting up to a point but this was not a good way to answer that question.

Spoiler

Vivian is not a particularly likable person. Her story starts when she is very young so I allowed her some space to be narcissistic as she works through becoming an adult. The book describes how she is very blessed during the rest of her life with hardly a major life setback. It ends when she is old, everyone she was close to has passed away, and in the last chapter, she asks Angela for her friendship. She points out that Angela must be old now (in her '70s) and it's hard to make friends so they should be friends. How manipulative! Vivian was a WASP who had the privilege to ignore the realities of the world as much as possible and who hurt people while making selfish choices. I think the author wants us to embrace her by proving she was a good person because of her friendship with Frank Gecco.

I started out the book really loving it but when I was done, I struggled to understand the point, unless the point is to dislike the main character even more at the end.