Book #34: Run by Ann Patchett

I have loved all of Ann Patchett's books I've read, but this is probably my least favorite so far. On Goodreads, some of the commenters say that Patchett clearly wrote this book for the Oprah's Book Club readers of the world, and after finishing it, I can kind of see why. Run is about the Doyle family, a wealthy white Boston family who adopted two black baby boys after not being able to have any other children of their own. Most of the action of the book happens within a twenty-four hour period, when the boys' biological mother, who had been watching them, pushes Tip out of the way to keep him from being hit by a car and ends up being hit herself. The Doyles take care of her young daughter while she's in the hospital, and her reappearance into their lives creates a lot of questions for all of them.

Although I did really like how the Doyle family seemed like a normal, happy family (even though they lost their mother to cancer, and they had problems with their older brother, but they love each other), I feel like some issues in the book seem a little unexamined. How is it possible that Tip and Teddy have never, ever wondered about their biological mother or father, and the thought of this mother coming into their life is such a shock? How come there isn't more tension for them being black boys adopted into a white family? There's one little line about Tip feeling less tension at the Jesse Jackson lecture they go to, because there are more black people there, but that's it. Why on earth is Tip so obsessed with fish? (He wants to become an icthyology researcher.) I felt like this book really was kind of a let-down and not nearly as thoughtful as Patchett's other books that I've read.