What We Keep

by Elizabeth Berg

Book Overview

Do you ever really know your mother, your daughter, the people in your family? In this rich and rewarding new novel by the beloved bestselling author of Talk Before Sleep and The Pull of the Moon, a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375500995
• ISBN13: 9780375500992
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Do we ever really know people?

Elizabeth Berg tells a FANTASTIC account of parenting in What We Keep. I’m not saying that life is perfect, but a reality that children perceive. What We Keep shares the feelings of two sisters who lived through some very hard and hurtful times in a way that only two connected children could. This is a deep read and look forward to reading more of Elizabeth Berg’s books.

This book was wonderful

I am amazed that the first review that pops up is incredibly negative, referring to the novel as a "disappointment." I absolutely could not put this book down. Elizabeth Berg has an incomparable way of using nostalgia, harsh realities and stories about people as they truly live to create such real situations and characaters, you think you know them and you definitely care about them. It has been many years since I have read an author who could do this so seamlessly, with such simplicity -- she is an inspiration. And as far as the book being a disappointment, I have read all of her books, and this is my favorite. If you are at all interested in mother daughter relationships, sisterly bonds, life in the fifties and sixties, you will enjoy this book. Don't listen to the professional "reviewers," this book soars.

Simply Superlative

I have just finished the most amazing book I've read this year and I can say this in February - the 2nd month of the year. But I know I will never read a book like "What We Keep" by Elizabeth Berg this year. I picked this book up on the 7th of February and finished it on the 13th. This book has been with me for a week and will remain for a long time in my memory. The book is about mothers and daughters. I know it's cliched. Many things have been written on this topic but this book is different. It bares its soul to the readers. The narrator Ginny Young at forty-seven is out to meet her mother after thirty-five years on a call from her sister Sharla. While travelling on the air plane she narrates the past. The little incidents. The midnight escapades with Sharla and all the complexities of an eleven-year old and her older sister. While reading this book, there were many a times that I cried uncontrollably and now when I ask myself why: I know that the book made me contemplate the relationship I share with my mother and all those times we have been close and in many ways apart. I cannot resist but include these beautiful lines from the book as excerpts:"I suppose what I now believe is that we owe our mothers and our daughters the truth, and the truth is that my mother was forgiven in the way she was not forgotten."What we Keep made me think of really what we do keep - memories, anger, frustration, childhood, sisterhood, joy, sadness and more than anything else no matter what the ties with a mother - the ability to forgive and forget, the ability to love again no matter what. I would recommend this book to anyone. Everyone must read it.

A Story of a mother-daughter relationship

WHAT WE KEEP was the story of a woman (Ginny Young ) who is about to meet her mother for the first time after being apart for 35 years. During the flight to California, she remembers the events that lead up to her mother's departure. Ginny was 12 years old when she last sees her mother, and we see the events through Ginny's 12 year old eyes. And although the 12 year old Ginny does not fully understand why things happened the way they did, the reader will note things that the young inexperienced Ginny could not understand. The adult Ginny finally is able to understand, and it takes the reunion with Ginny, older sister Sharla, and their mother Marion to help her realize why her mother left them all those years ago.This was the first time I read a book by Elizabeth Berg and I was very pleased. I found it to be a fast read. Her descriptions were so vivid that I could imagine the characters as if watching a movie. I also found her characters to be interesting and real. I could relate to them and understand them. I am looking forward to reading more by Elizabeth Berg.

Yet another Berg book to treasure...

What a wonderful writer Elizabeth Berg is. I've read all of her books, and thoroughly enjoyed this one. This book will have you laughing and crying, all the while examining your own relationship with your mother. Berg has a way with words that is truly remarkable. Her beautiful prose, while seemingly simplistic, is honest and refreshing. I am an avid reader, and it is not often that I stop reading in mid-chapter just to appreciate the beauty or poignancy of a single sentence, as I do with her books. Also try Range of Motion & Talk Before Sleep. You won't be disappointed!

Beautiful! Bravo

Miss Berg writes the way I think! I read it and gave it to my 18 year old daughter to read. She loved it so much, I never got it back..No author has such incredible insight into the complexities of relationships between mothers and daughters as does Miss Berg. I've read everything she has written and hope she continues writing these books that tug at the heartstrings..I hope someday I get to meet this remarkable woman..Can't wait for her next novel.