Book Review: Mercy Street

 

It would be hard for Jennifer Haigh to write a more perfect book than The Condition -one of my all time favorite books about family- and she didn't, but Mercy Street is an enjoyable story about unusual, not always likeable, characters who interact in unexpected ways.

The main character is Claudia, a counselor at a women's clinic who is finding herself stuck in a rut in her increasingly solitary life. The story is told in alternating POV, which I love as a storytelling device. The diverse cast includes a pot dealer and an anti-abortion activist, and their lives collide in ways that shake Claudia out of her rut. 

There is not a cookie-cutter happy ending, but it manages to be satisfying and realistic.