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Sasha has a lot on her plate. Husband Jeremy is distant and absent and the marriage needs work. Son Zac is entering a rebellious adolescent phase and it's hard to know how to redirect him. Mother Annie, an alcoholic, is beginning the journey into dementia and has never been an easy person at the best of times. Thank heavens for her lovely dog, Sebastian, and his unconditional love. Zac decides he would like to make a film about the family, which should be a positive, affirming project. But, in the course of interviewing Annie for it, he stumbles across a long-kept family secret about the sibling he does not know. This secret propels Sasha back twenty years to a night she would rather forget, and Annie back decades further to a different but equally traumatic one.
''What's Left Unsaid'' was an absorbing read. It's told in alternating first person perspectives by Sasha, Annie and Joe and takes us into a post-war past as well as an unfolding present. Joel's entries are short interjections and often really rather profound. Annie's memories are jumbled and confused but reveal so much about the ways in which events from childhood and youth have brought to bear on her adult life and especially her relationship with her daughter. Sasha's is a journey of discovery, really. I quickly became invested in all three characters and deeply curious to uncover the secrets being carried through the years that were clearly such burdens for all concerned.

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