The Return Journey: Stories

I picked this up at the library last week because it looked like a quick, easy read; in that I was not disappointed. The writing is good and each character lends something interesting to the stories.
However, a lot of the writing is abstract, so I never really felt deeply drawn into the characters' lives. It was like a collection of character sketches, actually. I was interested enough to finish but will likely not buy the book. This is my first sample of Maeve Binchy's work, and I will say that her way of using English was pleasant and her writing flows well. A lot of the stories were sad or pensive, and I didn't like that so many characters had rather loose morals, even though I know it's probably representative of real life. I do like it that the people in the stories learned real lessons from their experiences, like the young mother ready to start an affair to have a little excitement, whose circumstances ended up giving her way too much excitement and scaring her out of it before anything happened.