I felt ambivalent about this book--I hated the fact that Katherine kills at least 3 animals throughout the novel, maybe more, but I admire its honest look at the prison parenthood can present. Katherine asks many important feminist questions: Where is the father's responsibility? Can you love your children yet feel the overpowering need to be free and live your own life all as your own? Too late Katherine realizes she does not relish being a parent --it had simply been expected of her. When her own sister finally gives birth, Katherine is reluctant to attend, but overcomes her fear and joins her sister in the joyful, painful experience of childbirth, growing somehow herself in the process. At times the character got on my nerves, but her honesty and courage often won out. The novel did a decent job portraying the '70's without overdoing it or oversentimentality.

This book is in some ways like The YaYa-book (Rebecca Wells), which I read prior to this one and was not crazy about. They are both set in Louisisana, girls get sent to convent schools because they are rebellious and too difficult to handle, and both deal a lot with catholicism and sin. But, where the YaYas are boring and uninteresting, Midnigt lemonade is not! I really like this book and it made me both cry and laugh. It's a great story in which we follow Katherine from when she's a kid in school to when she marries an older man and becomes the mother of three chilren, and then a little longer. One thing I really like about it is the relationship with her father. When she's a kid, she's the star in his universe and she believes she can do anything cause he tells her so. Then she grows up and her life changes, and as much as she would like to, they can't seem to get that contact again. And this is just one of all the interesting relationships we find it! Family, kids, friends, lovers, husbands, it's all here. Try it and have some quality hours with Midnigt lemonade!

Wonderful book, one of my all time favorites, but where is Ann Goethe now? Been watching for another book by this insightful writer--please tell me she is still writing???