The Making of Us
A Novel
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4.2 • 198 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True comes a “compelling and heartbreaking” (Jojo Moyes) novel about three strangers who are brought together by the father they never knew.
Lydia, Dean, and Robyn don’t know one another. Yet. Each is facing difficult challenges. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood. Wealthy and successful, she leads a lonely and disjointed existence. Dean is a young, unemployed, single dad whose life is going nowhere. Robyn is eighteen. Gorgeous, popular, and intelligent, she entered her first year of college confident of her dream to become a pediatrician. Now she’s failing her classes. Now she’s falling in love for the first time.
Lydia, Dean, and Robyn live very different lives, but each of them, independently, has always felt that something was missing. What they don’t know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It is a letter containing a secret—one that will bind them together and show them what love and family and friendship really mean.
“Filled with heart and humor” (Kirkus Reviews), The Making of Us is a literary gem that will remind readers of the miracles that happen when we bring life into the world and share our lives with those we love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In U.K. bestseller Jewell's ninth novel, readers meet Daniel, a man with a secret: as a sperm donor, he fathered four children. Now, dying from cancer at 53, he wants to find them and enlists his friend Maggie to help. The wealthy Lydia is lonely and disconnected from others; the 21-year-old Dean is a confused young father, coping with parenthood after the recent death of his girlfriend; Robin, a young woman determined to be a doctor, is enmeshed in a love affair with a writer. She knows the story of her conception and has become concerned that her boyfriend, Jack, who looks, thinks, and acts like her, could be her sibling; "It was surely so improbable as to be entirely impossible," she thinks, yet also acknowledges that it "might not in fact be pure random coincidence" that she and Jack would be drawn together. The identity of Daniel's fourth child remains a mystery that is only solved when Lydia, Dean, and Robin become determined to find their father. Jewell's moving novel immerses readers in the lives of these unique characters through the universal themes of family and a search for belonging. While the pseudo-incest thread is unnecessary, it's also quite funny. Jewell (After the Party) has written a compelling and entertaining novel.
Customer Reviews
Warm
Hard to follow at first but then fell in love with it.
A sweet, heartfelt read
If you can suspend your disbelief a bit, this is a sweet, heartfelt read. I was fully engrossed in this book and read it over the course of a few days. Sometimes things were a bit too perfectly coincidental and I wish certain characters had been more developed, but overall this book left me with a full heart. I love all of Lisa Jewell’s books and will continue to work through them!
Love her, this book not so much
Lately I cannot get enough of Lisa Newell’s writing. I devour her novels in two days. This particular novel fell short of her others. I found myself skipping entire chapters as some characters seemed unnecessary and some whole passages were just repetitive. All of her others I absolutely adored.