Book Review: The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd

The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd

Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.  Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been "molded to the smallest space possible."  So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself relieved to be apart from her husband, Hugh.  Jessie loves Hugh, but on Egret Island--amid the gorgeous marshlands and tidal creeks--she becomes drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is mere months from taking his final vows.  What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right.

3/5 stars (liked it)
This book takes place in 1988 between February and May.  This story is about Jessie and how she learns more about herself by being away from her husband and falling in love.  Her relationship with her mother and a past that she thought she knew but learns the truth in the end.  Her relationship with her college aged daughter Dee and how her marital problems affects her daughter.  Also her relationship with her husband Hugh and the "other man" Brother Thomas.  Brother Thomas deciding his future, is it with God or with this woman he is drawn to.  In the end it seems like everyone in this books learns a little bit about themselves and that things don't always go as plan or are what they seem.