Earlier this year, I read a debut novel called The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff. I loved this book about grief, forgiveness and parenthood, told through the prism of a marriage plagued by addiction. I was very excited to read Damoff’s new book, The Burning Side, which is also a family drama about a marriage in crisis. In The Burning Side, April, Leo and their two small children are forced to move out of their house after it is ravaged by a fire. They move in with April’s parents while they figure out whether their marriage – already under serious strain – will survive the trauma. Meanwhile, April’s parents are dealing with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the seismic shifts that accompany that news. While I liked The Burning Side, it didn’t deliver the same emotional punch as Damoff’s first book. This one felt more scripted, a little too conveniently plotted. I wasn’t particularly rooting for April and Leo, who simply needed to have an honest conversation to work things out. Overall, this one was just OK for me. (But The Bright Years is one of my top reads of the year.)