Why the Sky is Blue by Susan Meissner

Claire Holland's life is changed forever one night when she is attacked and raped by an unknown assailant. She wakes up later in the hospital with no real memory of the incident. She thinks the danger is past until she discovers that she has been impregnated by her attacker. But she is married already, and has two children of her own. She knows she cannot in good faith abort the life growing inside her. She and her husband finally decide to put the unborn child up for adoption. So, when the child is born, she is whisked away into the arms of another couple. Katie Holland, Claire's daughter, cannot understand why her half-sister was taken away from her. Over a decade later, Katie receives a life-changing letter from her half-sister's adopted mother. What she reads re-opens the past and forces them to face something everyone tried to forget.

Where Susan Meissner's other books are character-driven masterpieces, Why the Sky is Blue falls short of this standard and is instead a simplistic story. Gone are her normal complex plot twists and complex characters. This novel lacks surprises, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with this, this type of plot needs complex characters, and yet there are none.

Only Claire and Katie show any hint of personality. They are both limited characters, who, though imperfect, are not in the least bit realistic. The other characters suffer for any kind of realistic nature, especially Lara, Katie's half-sister. This is very unlike Susan because she usually has very realistic characters. This is a shame and drags the entire plot down.

The book is divided into two parts-the first part being about Claire's unwanted pregnancy, the second part being about Katie's adult life. This book is so simple it could have been written by a ten-year-old. I don't understand why Susan wrote such a simple plot. The foundational idea behind the book is interesting enough, but it needed complex characters to make it work.

There is not much else to critique about the plot. Susan has not written anything like this since, so she clearly learned her lesson. This is why she is an Elite author-because she adjusts. Hopefully she will never return to this point in her career.

2.5 stars