"Well you can't lock her in her room until she's thirty!" A common phrase parents use when debating how to handle teenagers. But one father did just that. For 19 years Jimmy and Dorothea lived in a compound in New Mexico with a father who feared everything. Jimmy, a talented artist, wasn't allowed real paints (toxic fumes!) and Dorothea is never allowed to learn to cook (knives are sharp!). The kids had no TV, no computer, no radio, no telephone - Nothing but their dad and paternal grandmother. Jimmy was six when life as he knew it ended, young enough to submit, yet old enough to remember 'just enough'. That 'just enough' wedged suspicion into his heart and compels Jimmy to leave home and head out into the real world at age 24. When Dorothea is forced to leave the only home she's known to find Jimmy, she embarks on an adventure that will not only bring her into the 21st century, but reveal more about life and her father than any of her ancient encyclopedias ever could.

"Once Upon a Day" is a mystery wrapped around a tragic love story. Why is the father so fearful and controlling? Can the kids adjust to life in modern day America? Will they ever find their mother's family despite their father's stonewalling? I don't normally read mystery novels, so I am unfamiliar with the genre. What I can say is that by the beginning of part two, what appears to be the main mystery is solved - Only to be replaced with a larger mystery. One reason I don't read mysteries is that I'm impatient. "Once Upon a Day" kept me reading because it hooked me early, I had to know why things happened and if the father was worthy of forgiveness. The butler didn't do it, but woo boy, did the father ever!

The novel moves back and forth between three different narrators including a doctor-turned-cab driver who befriends Dorothea. He has his own "Once Upon a Day" story that he wrestles with the entire novel. With all these characters and back stories, I'm happy to say that it is never confusing and amazingly spends enough time on each of them for you to fall in love with them. I believe that part of that is because you *want* them to be happy. Then again you wouldn't give two figs if the character development wasn't that good.

The questions we are forced to ask ourselves include how powerful is love? Can it keep you loving someone who destroys your life? Can it help you forgive that person? And if so, is then forgiveness the most powerful? There is also that obvious, elephant in the room, realization that as much crap life throws at you, someone else also had one hell of a day in their lifetime. Don't all of our lives hinge on that one day when it all changed?

I highly recommend this book as a great summer book. It's not entirely light and fluffy, but it's also not a difficult read. I also think it would be a great book club selection with all the ethical and moral questions that are raised.

Labels: Books