Great writing. Engaging characters. Ironically, had a problem with the ending. ( )

I read The Garden of Happy Endings because it was recommended to me by Goodreads. I suppose that was because I had read and enjoyed a couple of novels by Gail Godwin: Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong. All three of these books treat priests/ministers in a realistic manner, exposing their flaws but also telling of their struggles to make the world a better place.

The Garden of Happy Endings has a few elements that touch on the mystical side of Christianity: angels, ghosts (human and animal) and callings but that isn't the core of the book. It's about living one's life with faith. That includes losing faith when tragedy or personal disappointment strikes. It also includes having faith fill a void created by loss.

This novel is listed in three categories on Amazon: Women's Divorce Fiction, Sisters Fiction and Women's Sagas. The latter two are obvious. The first less so because there is no actual divorce in the plot. There are, however, three women who split from their partners for different reasons and react to their separations in different ways.

The male characters in the novel are less developed than the females, which makes sense since the book is written from the points of view of the three women: Elsa (a minister going through a faith crisis), Tamsin (Elsa's sister) and Alexa (Tamsin's daughter). They all have stories worth telling.

I recommend this book for anyone looking for a good story of faith and its power to help deal with tragedy and broken relationships. ( )

Spoilers included

Elsa is a reverend. In her lifetime she has had two events that turned her away from religion and the book starts with the third event.
The events that caused her crises of faith include:
-At 14 being told in a very unkind way that she could never be a priest
-As a 20something, her fiancée leaves her to become a priest
-As a 30something reverend, a member of her parish who is only a teenager is tortured and killed

The first two events caused her to leave her religion as a Catholic since she could never be a priest herself, which lead to her becoming preacher of another denomination.
The third event caused her to question her beliefs entirely.

She moves back to her hometown while on a sabbatical from her Parrish. But this is complicated by her ex (the priest) having to acknowledge that he's still in love with her.

There's also the drama with her sister.

Ultimately the garden in this book is not all happy. Lots of bad stuff happens since the garden is in a bad part of town.

All the animals in the book survived.

The ending was mostly happy but jeese there was a lot of sadness in the book too. ( )

I've read most of Barbara Samuel O'Neal's books. This is among my top three favorites. Which is amazing, considering the fact that I'm not religious. But I found Elsa's struggle not so much with organized religion, but her struggle with her own beliefs, expectations, and disappointments.

The emotion was true and richly depicted. The conflict was basic, and strong. The love story was sweet. The relationships were deep and varied.

I loved this book. One of those I didn't want to get to the end of. ( )

Barbara O'Neal creates fabulous characters who are real and believeable. This book truly did not disappoint. In this story, Elsa, and ordained Reverand for Unity Church experiences a profound loss of faith. She returns to the home of her youth and attempts to face her demons. Her sister Tamsin lives in an ivory tower until her world crumbles; she ends up searching for the lost meaning in her own life. To me, all of Barbara's books (both under her current name O'Neal and her previous name Samuel)are realistic fiction, bordering on mystical fantasy. I believe she ranks up there as one of my favorite authors. ( )