Amy and Isabelle: A novel

I loved this one. The prose is clean yet lyrical, and the characters are complex. The woman-woman relationships are so much more real and more moving than the Kris Radish atrocity I just finished.

Elizabeth Strout is a wonderful writer. This is her first novel, and I think a good one, about a mother/daughter relationship that is fraught with secrets and underlying tension, but inevitably love. Isabelle, the tentative, insecure, shy and often perceived aloof mother is always proper, and always repressed. Amy, her daughter, is seemingly hiding and encouraged to come out of her shell by a...more

Elizabeth Strout is a wonderful writer. This is her first novel, and I think a good one, about a mother/daughter relationship that is fraught with secrets and underlying tension, but inevitably love. Isabelle, the tentative, insecure, shy and often perceived aloof mother is always proper, and always repressed. Amy, her daughter, is seemingly hiding and encouraged to come out of her shell by a questionable teacher at school. Strout draws her characters well and with good detail. Heartbreaking and at times erotic, redemption is found satisfyingly at the end!   hide

Loved it!

I did not like this book. At all. And after reading reviews by others here on GoodReads, I have to wonder if I missed something !!) in this book. I didn't see ANY of the same things that they all saw that they deemed the making of this book wonderful. In fact, in over 20 reviews, only TWO reviews were negative, where they (like me) felt the book was crap. And all this makes...more

I did not like this book. At all. And after reading reviews by others here on GoodReads, I have to wonder if I missed something !!) in this book. I didn't see ANY of the same things that they all saw that they deemed the making of this book wonderful. In fact, in over 20 reviews, only TWO reviews were negative, where they (like me) felt the book was crap. And all this makes me feel flawed (Even though I *KNOW* I am not). Like there is something inherently wrong with me. That I am incapable of like a book that is rough read (and this WAS a tough book to read--tough subject matter, tough language etc) or that is popular or is a classic (re; my dislike of Jane Austen comes to mind). And I *KNOW* its all in my head, but GOOD GRIEF!! I look back at books that I have hated and everyone else loves and wonder what it is that is so different about me. So, that is my review (and rant). Weird I know. But what can I say about a book I really didn't like (ok, almost hated) and only finished to see what happened (and felt that the end was especially crap)and that everyone else loved? Nothing.   hide

Love. It.

A glimpse into the complexity of the mother/daughter relationship. Despite our best intentions, are our children doomed to make the same mistakes we made?

Love her writing and her characters...tough to get into but worth the effort.

A subtle glimpse into the horrors and beauties of everyday life. Strout's characters leap off the page, and our hearts break for them.

Meh. It wasn't great but it wasn't horrid either.