The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens

     This is another one of those books that I’m not sure what I feel about it. It is about a Teahouse in Belfast, Ireland and how the lives of the customers and employees intertwine. The book is well-written and there is something like a half dozen main characters. Each chapter alternates which character it involves using which ever one is most relevant to the passing of time. The chapters are decent lengths and fairly consistent; not three pages here, twelve pages there.

     The things that have me unsure about this book are the fact that all the characters get a nice, neat happy ending and her characters are just not likable. The endings for all the characters except one involve being in a happy, stable relationship. I don’t know why that part bothers me so much but it does. I might be trying to read too much into the concept but the people who have the kinds of problems these characters did, don’t and can’t just jump into a happy relationship without professional help. Instead of dealing with their problems, it feels like they either ignored them to stay with their current love interest or blamed their partner and ran away with some one else. It also bugs me that to get the happy ending the two professional artistic characters, a novelist and a painter, had to give up their art. She didn't even make it into a hobby. She just had the characters swear it off completely.

     The characters are unlikable because even though half of them get dealt a crappy hand, they go about trying to fix it in the worst way possible. One woman’s husband is cheating on her, so she decides to get revenge on him. Understandable? Yes. But what she does goes way too far and drags on way too long. She starts on a months long campaign to discredit him in the eyes of his mistress, his family, and his boss; ending with telling lies about him stealing clients and setting up a rival business at a work banquet in his honor to get him fired. The owner of the café has a penny pinching husband. He won’t do anything if it involves money. He doesn't want kids and won’t remodel or update the café. The owner decides she is going to withhold sex and starts an affair with some random guy until her husband changes his mind about having kids. I couldn't even feel sorry for them because they all act like stupid teenagers. I may read this book again in a few months just to see if my first impressions were accurate but I’m glad I got it from the library and didn't pay actual money for it.