Book Title:  Life on the Refrigerator Door

Author:  Alice Kuipers

Publishing Company:  Harper Collins

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 220

ISBN #:  978-0-00-200679-8

$19.95 Canada 

3 ½ Stars 

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

Life on the Refrigerator Door is a debut novel for Alice Kuipers. Born in London, England, and now living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Kuipers is a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University and has been published in literary magazines. 

Life on the Refrigerator Door is a story of a single mother and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Claire.  The mother is a busy obstetrician, and she and Claire see very little of each other.  The entire story is told through the notes they leave each other on the refrigerator door. 

This format is fascinating.  As a teen-ager, one of my favorite books was Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase, the story of a young teacher's first year in an inner-city school with students who could make Welcome Back, Kotter's sweathogs look like Rhodes Scholars.  The story of the year was told completely through faculty meeting minutes, staff memos, lesson plans, notes from the Suggestion Box, and papers retrieved from the wastebasket. This was the first time I read a story that had to be pieced together in such a fashion, and I loved it, particularly because it was so believable. 

Unfortunately, this is not the case with Life on the Refrigerator Door. This is a story that requires a suspension of disbelief. If a real-life custodial parent had so little time with her teen-aged child, there would soon be a social worker knocking at the door. While the initial missives include such credible things as grocery lists, reminders not to forget a key, requests for allowance, and reports of baby-sitting jobs, the story takes an important turn that makes this format unsuitable. The mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, and the refrigerator notes begin to stretch into long letters between mother and daughter.  It is simply not believable that in such a critical time there would be so little face-to-face contact and that both mother and daughter would resort to this form of communication. This is too cute a means of storytelling to be matched with such a big, serious story. 

Kuipers presents her characters very well. Through their letters, the happy, cooperative Claire emerges into a worried, confused daughter, trying to grow up and enter a relationship while also trying to deal with her mother's illness. The mother emerges as one who cares for her daughter but cannot completely reach beyond her self-absorption, first with her career, then with her illness.     

This is a book that presents many interesting talking points, and it will likely become a favorite of book groups everywhere. It will particularly appeal to women examining their relationships, both as mothers and as daughters, and those who face the nightmare of breast cancer will easily relate to the characters' experiences.  Those are wonderful achievements for a first book. There is no question Kuipers has chosen a good story to tell; I only wish she had chosen a more believable way to tell it.