Abandoned by Booklikes

So I read this book back when it was first published. However, I felt like re-reading it this past weekend since none of the books I brought with me to read during my visit with my family held my attention much. Maeve Binchy is an old stand-by for me.

I read Heart and Soul years ago and this book is a continuation of that story with many of the characters from that book appearing in this one.

The main focus of this story is on Noel and how he comes to find out that he is expecting a baby with a one night stand. We start to realize that Noel is hiding a pretty big secret about himself that his cousin Emily (visiting from America) quickly figures out. The main plot point of Minding Frankie is Noel growing up and doing what is necessary to raise his daughter Frankie. With him doing his best and trying to deal with the world's nosiest social worker at times you end up feeling nothing buy sympathy for Noel.

Besides these two characters, we also have the character of Lisa who realizes that her parents loveless marriage is nothing she wants part of, and proceeds to move out and move on to a man who is not capable of giving her what she wants.

We have fan favorites from her previous books like Declan and Fiona Carroll (Heart and Soul), Muttie and Lizzie (Scarlet Feather), Brian Flynn (Whitehorn Woods) and a dozen more.

There was one character that I really didn't like and thought made no sense to the story. The character of Moira who is the social worker just irritated me from beginning to end. I don't know how things work in Ireland, but I can't imagine that a social worker could show up at your home every single day and ask personal questions that have nothing to do with the raising of your child. I would probably have gotten a restraining order. I also wonder how in the world Moira did her other work when she was so obsessed with trying to prove that Noel would be a horrible father and the best thing for Frankie would be adoption.

Besides that character, I thought that all in all this is a classic Maeve Binchy story. We have a huge cast of characters that are easily identifiable. We also get many plot points going on that for the most part are satisfactory wrapped up in the end. I would say that most of the plot points are similar to other plots she has had in her books so there were no real surprises there for the most part.