Richard Yates: The Easter Parade

Hi everyone

This is my review for Richard Yates’ The Easter Parade.
My copy has 226 pages and I got it from Book Depository.
You can find all my Richard Yates reviews here.

“Even as little girls, Sarah and Emily are very different from each other. Emily looks up to her wiser and more stable older sister and is jealous of her relationship with their absent father, and later her seemingly golden marriage. The path she chooses for herself is less safe and conventional and her love affairs never really satisfy her. Although the bond between them endures, gradually the distance between the two women grows, until a tragic event throws their relationship into focus one last time.”

I loved this book.

It’s very depressing but it’s so, so beautiful.

Although the book is rather short, it never felt rushed. The story spans a couple of decades and a lot happens in that time but I still felt like I truly understood what Emily was going through.
Emily and Sarah are fascinating, especially in their differences. Both reacted in a totally opposite way to their childhood and the divorce of their parents. I found both characters to be very relatable, human and realistic and though they are flawed and unlikable, I really felt for them.

Yates knows how to write about utterly miserable characters and he does it remarkably well. The book is never sentimental or dramatic; it’s a fascinating view into a time and society that’s not so very different from our own and our way of thinking about women.
The writing is absolute perfection and I couldn’t put the book down.
The loneliness, the hopelessness and sorrow make this book heart wrenching. Both Sarah and Emily are so incredibly lost and alone.

The ending is absolutely perfect. I couldn’t imagine it any other way and it’s so in line with all the characters.

But I really didn’t like sexscenes we got, and especially not how graphic they were. It felt like someone else was writing those. It’s important that we experience Emily’s search for someone to spend her life with and how it goes wrong every time, but the way they were written didn’t fit into the style of the novel.

4.5 STARS

Happy reading!
Helena