Character Driven

 The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty, is a summer book club read. Right up front I'll tell you that this type of book is not my taste.  There is literally and figuratively no action, unless you count dying as action.

The story is about Laurel's dad dying in the hospital.  Then the rest of the book is about the characters that came to his funeral.  The reader has to make a list of characters, or she would be lost.  It ends with Laurel coming to closure and going home to live her life.

Interesting tidbits:

The optimists are:
     1.  Laurel's mother, Becky, who is a gardener.  You have to be optimistic to garden.
     2.  Laurel's father who doesn't entertain the thought of dying.  He even remarried, after Becky died, to a woman Laurel's age.
     3.  Laurel is the most hopeful optimist because after going through her husband's demise, her mother's death, and then her father's, she leaves it all behind to charge forward to her future in Chicago.

Foreshadowing:
    1.  The deaths--both parents' demise began with eye problems.
    2.  The bird trapped in the house is like memories being trapped in your head.  The bird escapes and flies away, just like Lauren escapes the memories of her childhood, and friends and flies away home.

Good points:
   1.  Eudora Welty writes beautifully.
   2.  The Optimist's Daughter is a short novel.