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Rating: 
Summary: Great drama that highlights modern extended family
Review: Josie Carver marries Matthew Mitchell. However, his three children (fifteen-year old Becky, twelve-year old Rory, and ten-year old Clare) from a former marriage and his mentally imbalanced ex-wife cause problems for their relationship. In contrast, Matthew gets on well with her child (eight-year old Rufus) from her former marriage. Can this couple survive the storms of an extended family? Josie's ex-husband architect Tom Carver becomes engaged to client Elizabeth Brown. His oldest son Lucas (from his first marriage to the deceased Pauline) hopes his dad finds happiness. His other adult child from Tom's marriage to Pauline, Dale, causes major friction between them. Can this couple survive the storm of one individual? Renowned for her novels set in England, Joanna Trollope writes an excellent and timely contemporary drama on the impact of various related step-families. The story is extremely complex, enjoyable, and poignant. The motivations of the numerous characters are comprehensible and allow readers to deeply look into the varying dilemmas confronting adults and children with the modern ultra-extended family. OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN demonstrates that Ms. Trollope knows how to dig into the psychological heart of the modern world.
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Summary: the world of stepchildren
Review: It can be amazing, the effects of one decision. Josie, amarried woman with a child, falls in love with Matthew, a married manwith 3 children... and the snowball begins the avalanche. This is a wonderful book, this look at the balancing around stepchildren (not for them, but not ignoring them either.) There is a lot of love, a lot of pain, oh sure, but more intriguingly, there is a lot of truth in this examination of the lives of people so caught in the juggernaut of modern life.
Rating: 
Summary: Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope
Review: Josie has just married Mathew , whose 3 teenage children currently live with their mother, Nadine. Josie's son, Rufus will live with Josie and Mathew but he secretly prefers his father Tom's house, especially since Tom met Elizabeth.....what happens when Nadine relinquishes the children to Mathew and Josie? And when Elizabeth wants to mother Rufus but cannot see a future with his father? This is a story about circumstances that many families, both adults and children, will face at every level of society. Trollope has a great gift for succint and emotive language that turns so called ordinary events into meaningful and poignant moments and where the reader as onlooker, is totally absorbed into the minutae of family interaction. Without choosing sides or casting blame , Trollope takes us through the changes and adjustments that two divorces and a remarriage make for all involved. For eg Josie as stepmother must defy the stereotype of the "other woman" made harder by natural mother Nadine's destructive and irrational behaviour, pushing the loyalties of her children constantly to the test. Elizabeth comes up against the extreme reactions of Toms' adult children who will not allow Tom a second chance. Triumphs and tragedies are experienced by each participant as they pick up the pieces of a new family structure, and the reader is left with a strong awareness that there are no clear cut answers . Only that the immense efforts made by step- families can result in unexpected successes. Sentimental it may be, but this novel is a positive and generous slant on the extended step family.
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Summary: Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope
Review: Josie has just married Mathew , whose 3 teenage children currently live with their mother, Nadine. Josie's son, Rufus will live with Josie and Mathew but he secretly prefers his father Tom's house, especially since Tom met Elizabeth.....what happens when Nadine relinquishes the children to Mathew and Josie? And when Elizabeth wants to mother Rufus but cannot see a future with his father? This is a story about circumstances that many families, both adults and children, will face at every level of society. Trollope has a great gift for succint and emotive language that turns so called ordinary events into meaningful and poignant moments and where the reader as onlooker, is totally absorbed into the minutae of family interaction. Without choosing sides or casting blame , Trollope takes us through the changes and adjustments that two divorces and a remarriage make for all involved. For eg Josie as stepmother must defy the stereotype of the "other woman" made harder by natural mother Nadine's destructive and irrational behaviour, pushing the loyalties of her children constantly to the test. Elizabeth comes up against the extreme reactions of Toms' adult children who will not allow Tom a second chance. Triumphs and tragedies are experienced by each participant as they pick up the pieces of a new family structure, and the reader is left with a strong awareness that there are no clear cut answers . Only that the immense efforts made by step- families can result in unexpected successes. Sentimental it may be, but this novel is a positive and generous slant on the extended step family.
Rating:
Summary: Other People's Children by Joanna Trollope
Review: Josie has just married Mathew, whose 3 teenage children live with their mother Nadine. Josie's son Rufus will live with Josie and Mathew but secretly Rufus prefers his father Tom's house, especially since Tom met Elizabeth......what will happen when Nadine relinquishes the 3 teenagers to Josie and Mathew>? Will Elizabeth be able to give up Rufus even if she cannot see a future with his father? This is a sentimental but highly readable book on the effects faced by adults and children, when family dynamics change. Trollope has a gift for succint and emotive language whereby the reader as onlooker can be totally absorbedinto the minutae of family life, and ordinary domestic events are invested with a poignancy that lingers as surely as similar real life scenarios . Th story takes us through the adjustments needed by two divorces and a remarriage, the consequences managing to rebound on every adult and child involved. The traumas of key figures such as Josie the new stepmother, fighting the negative stereotypes , despite Nadine's irrational and abusive behaviour toward her children, are compulsive, as are Elizabeth's struggles with the destructive pattern of possessiveness set by Tom's adult children. The reader is made increasingly aware that no clear cut answers are in view, but the unexpected joys of people overcoming emotional baggage, make for a positive and generous novel on the extended family model.
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Summary: You Only Hurt the Ones You Love...
Review: Sometimes it's hard to review Joanna Trollope's books for fear of putting off a potential reader. Such is the case with "Other People's Children," which is a brilliant look at what step- families are really like. I know that I, reading the above sentence, would think, "Oh, not again, it's been done to death, yuck." And then I would have missed one of Trollope's best works, one that is not boring in the least, and that has such insight, such truth, that it can enrich any reader.So. That having been said, please bear with me as I try to explain this book, which is slight on plot and heavy on insight. It involves a number of very nice people of all ages, from young Rufus, just 7 when the book begins, to a 20-something engaged couple, to a 30-something newly married pair who are blending their respective families, to a May-September relationship between a single woman in her early 40s, Elizabeth, and a twice-married architect with two adult children from his first marriage, and Rufus from his second. This man's name is Tom. It is his adult son, Lucas, who is engaged (to Amy), and his second wife, Josie, mother of Rufus, whose recent remarriage has blended two families. Her husband, Matthew, has his hands full with his teenaged girl and boy, and a younger girl as well, all of them products of a highly dysfunctional mother whose sick dependence on them makes it nearly impossible for Matthew and Josie to have a normal life, especially with Lucas added to the mix. It is Tom's adult daughter Dale, however, who causes the most destruction in this story, once again illustrating Trollope's favorite "no man is an island" theme. Having lost her mother at the tender age of 4, Dale, now a successful businesswoman in her 30s, cannot let go of her clinging (and cloying) attachment to her father Tom or her brother Lucas. She retains a key to her childhood home and barges in whenever she feels like it, despite the fact that Elizabeth, Tom's fiancée, now lives there, and that Dale's young step-brother Lucas spends some weekends there as well. Dale is the catalyst for the eventual destruction of some relationships, and the triumph of others. The rippling effect of her neurotic behavior is catastrophic, even though she consciously means no harm. Does love conquer all? Not in this book--and not in real life, either. Kudos to Trollope for pointing this out, and for having the courage to resist a pat ending.
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Summary: Powerful and unrelenting writing on domestic ugliness
Review: This is the third novel of Joanna Trollope's that I've read and possibly the best.I like the way she strips naked any sentimentality and romanticism in new relationships and gives us what life really is about.Daily life is hard.Especially when innocent people are involved-namely,children. Although Becky is the kind of kid you just want to slip poison in her porridge or tea.
Rating: 
Summary: Pitifully pedestrian
Review: This novel deals with every aspect of step-familes--the spouses, the ex-spouses, the children, the step-children, step-brothers, step-sisters, half-brothers, half-sisters, parents, the in-laws, and the ex-in-laws. The story revolves around two families--connected by divorce and remarriage--Matthew who was married to Nadine, and their three children, and Matthew's second wife, Josie. Josie's ex-husband, Tom has 2 adult children from his first wife, Pauline, and not long after Josie ("the randy redhead") abandons Tom (taking their son Rufus along), Tom meets and falls in love with Elizabeth, a single civil servant. While Matthew and Josie struggle to form a single family unit under one roof, Tom has problems of his own. What will emerge from this mess? How will families re-form in the face of resentment, resistance, and guilt? Author Joanna Trollope writes with skill, compassion, and wisdom and creates characters who try to do the right thing in an imperfect world.
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Summary: Well-written, emotional story with deep characterization.
Review: This story brought tears to my eyes. It explores the lives of 3 women(Nadine,Josie,and Elizabeth)and how they are affected by divorce, being separated from their children and gaining stepchildren as well. Reading this story while going thru a divorce myself with a child made me nervous about what's in store for me. I think that Rory ,Becky, and Dale were extremely troubled almost to the point of being unrealistic. I loved the book though and had a hard time putting it down.
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