Having enjoyed a few of Lisa Jewell’s recent novels (The Family Upstairs, The House We Grew Up In, I Found You), I went back to some of her earlier work and chose The Making of Us (2012). It isn’t a thriller or mystery; rather, it’s an unsuspecting family drama.
The story centers around four people: Lydia is a wealthy, successful single woman who plagued by loneliness. Dean is suddenly a single dad who’s definitely not ready for the responsibility. Robyn is young and vibrant, on track to attend medical school and start a fabulous life, but… She too isn’t completely happy. The fourth person is the one who binds them all together.
Though the story wasn’t a full mystery (you find out soon enough who the fourth person is along with the secret he’s keeping), I enjoyed the steady unfolding of details as the three main characters grappled with their lives. I ended up rooting for them, hoping they’d weave together and make all the right choices. The title – The Making of Us – gives it away on some level. The “Us” is a work-in-progress, and it’s the reader who gets to watch it all pull together.
I will say that this story has more characters than what’s necessary. I wound up expecting more from a couple of them because they seemed more prominent than they actually were. In the end, I felt like a couple of storylines seemed pointless, like they could’ve been omitted and the story wouldn’t have been any better or worse.
The bottom line is that I enjoy Lisa Jewell’s writing style enough that I’m happy to play along and go where the story leads. The Making of Us doesn’t hold a candle to The Family Upstairs or The House We Grew Up In, but it was still a good read and left me with some brewing thoughts about what makes a family.