Child's Play

The family dynamics of the Moore’s certainly seemed incredibly difficult to relate to until the house of cards came tumbling down and the perfect family wasn’t entirely perfect at all. Loved this book!

Child’s Play by Danielle Steel is a story that parent’s will be able to understand and relate to. Parents have certain expectations for their children. We forget that they must make their own mistakes and follow their own path in life. Kate Morgan always set the bar high for her children and worked to be a good example for them. Kate is in her 50s and a senior partner at a law firm in New York City. After her politician husband passed away in a helicopter crash nineteen years previously, Kate went to law school while taking care of her kids with help from her mother, Margaret. Kate is proud of her children with their successful careers. She is unprepared when Claire announces she is having a child out of wedlock. Kate has old-fashioned ideals which she passed along to her kids. Claire, though, seems happy to shock her mother. Then Anthony announces he has broken off his engagement which paves the way for Tamara’s news. We see Kate struggle with each new announcement while juggling her clients. I found Child’s Play to be just the right length and it was easy to read. I quickly devoured it in a couple of hours. The characters are developed and realistic. Kate is an intelligent woman in her 50s who is also beautiful, sexy and vibrant. I like that Danielle Steel is giving us this type of mature character. Margaret, Kate’s mother, was my favorite. She provided keen insights and did not let her grandchildren’s news shake her. Kate could have let her children’s revelations alienate her from them, but we get to see how she adapts. Families continue to evolve as people mature as we see in Child’s Play. I liked that the main feature of the story was on the family with romance being secondary. There is some repetition of details which seems to be a trend in this author’s recent works. This repetitiveness is unnecessary. Child’s Play had the type of ending we look for from Danielle Steel. Child’s Play is dramatic family story with a spoiled sibling, shocking secrets, a lackluster lover, a boring bridezilla, a driven daughter, and a surprising suitor.

A truly unremarkable, bland story. The central character Kate Morgan, finds her perfect world rocked by her children’s life styles and decisions. Honestly, the worst is her daughter’s immaturity and bad behavior, which escalates as the story builds. The book is not a bad read, just slow, without much pizzazz.