After "The Amateur Marriage" I swore I wasn't reading anymore Anne Tyler, but someone said this was good. The final 50 or so pages were deadly dull, repeticious and predictable. And one chapter was from the point of view of a four-year-old! Please, spare me. I finished this book just so I could say fairly that I thought it was a dud.Who was this book about? There were too many characters and most of them were underdeveloped. Plus too many details. How many times did we have to know that Maryam took care of Susan? How many idiotic family gatherings did I have to witness?The girls' adoption sets this story in motion, then it goes nowhere. I didn't believe for a minute that Maryam cared about Dave. Toward the end there were pages and pages explaining Maryam. Tyler should have used all that background herself to write an interesting character instead of explaining it all to us.