38. A Thousand Acres

HATED IT. Again HATED IT!!

I kept reading thinking it has to get better, but no. And I got it because it was recommended on Barnes & Noble.com. Ugh.

A dysfunctional farm family struggles with farming. The father is mean. There are 3 grown & married daughters. The father decides to "retire" and give the farm to his girls. He then sits on his recliner and glares at them working all day.
The oldest daughter sleeps with a man she knew in high school who has come back home after dodging the draft in Canada for years.
Then the 2nd daughter falls in love with him, has an affair, meanwhile the oldest daughter finds out and begins to hate her sister.
Meanwhile the 2nd daughter's husband dies, leaving her with 2 teen daughters, but at least she has her new boyfriend. Oh and she has breast cancer.
The oldest daughter wanting to kill her sister, poisons some canned food (that she knows the daughters won't eat) and then just kind of waits to hear the news that her sister is dead.
Meanwhile, she then gets up one day, leaves her husband and belongings, drives to California and becomes a waitress.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the father sexually abused his daughters while they were growing up.
Then the 2nd sister dies (of breast cancer) and the oldest sister gets to raise them. But they are never really super close.

The 3rd sister (a lawyer) is much younger and ends up convincing her dad to sue his other daughters to get his farm back. But the father goes senile as the trial starts, so his older daughters can't confront him about his abuse.

Just a bucket of fun. Did I mention that I HATED this book.