The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher

 This was a gift from Rulona Stevenson for Christmas and it was the perfect "take me away" kind of story. It has so many real characters and is based on a real person, so there's history unfolding as well as a good story. The author, Kerri Maher, is a good writer and while it's not BEAUTIFUL prose, it's descriptive and entertaining. Not banal, although sometimes the characters seem a bit that way!

I'm sure it would be a mistake to assume that any of this is "TRUTH," but it was still interesting to wonder if this is indeed the way the Kennedy family lived and breathed. And how they used their influence. It sounds like a continuous round of parties and charity balls, and I never really got the sense of much of substance. The competition and athleticism of the Kennedy family was interesting to speculate about, as was the closeness of the siblings.

It was a wonder to me that although her brothers' and father's carousing bothered her, she never confronted any of it. Not sure how she would have, but the hypocrisy must have been hard to live with. And her mother, Rose, and her desperate clinging to her religion with no real explanation as to how or why was weird. Kick, the main character, struggles through the whole book about her love for Billy, but because he's a Protestant, she can't marry him. The whole story centers on this controversy, though we never learn exactly what it is that is objectionable. Maybe I"m weird, but I would have learned a lot from a more detailed and enlightening discussion of the divisive issues, or at least WHY the Catholic church thought you would go to hell if you married outside the faith. That would have enhanced the story for me.

Yet, this love story and Kick's struggle to help her sisters and resolve her issues was interesting to read about. It's a story told with a sympathetic view of her, and she definitely had admirable characteristics. It is a perfect light and clean and entertaining story.