Helpful Score: 4
I just finished reading My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout in one sitting. This book reads like a play, with each short chapter creating a scene. From these snapshots emerges the picture of a life Lucy Barton's life. The power of this book lies in the fact that its emotions feel so real, and the story feels so genuine that it leaves me thinking that it is more than fiction.
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2015/12/my-name-is-lucy-barton.html
Reviewed based on a copy received through a publisher's giveaway. Thank you Shelf Awareness.
Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2015/12/my-name-is-lucy-barton.html
Reviewed based on a copy received through a publisher's giveaway. Thank you Shelf Awareness.
Helpful Score: 2
When Lucy Barton is in a hospital following an appendectomy with an unexplained disease her husband, William, pays for her estranged mother to fly to NYC from Illinois to be with her. What follows is an exploration of the family history and a renewal of the mother-daughter bond. Lucy's family led a hardscrabble existence with an emotionally distant mother and an abusive father. Now a published author of fiction, Lucy is able to gain an added perspective during her conversations with her mother of everything that shaped her life and her writing. There are painful, poignant memories and there are reminiscences that evoke humor.
This is a powerfully haunting book about the effects of childhood on adult choices. It is told with a compassionate understanding that is present in all of Elizabeth Strout's books.
This is a powerfully haunting book about the effects of childhood on adult choices. It is told with a compassionate understanding that is present in all of Elizabeth Strout's books.
Sandi K W. (Sandiinmississippi) reviewed My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, Bk 1) on + 265 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A dreadful, one-note, mishmash which appears to be collected scraps she wrote while stranded in a back bathroom. Lucy Barton was raised in a rural, low-income, non-intellectual family, thus she can only communicate in two-syllable words at most and short sentences. Lots of very short. Sentences. On and On. Her troubled relationship with her mother (also a short sentence gal) is not explored but hinted at - because you know lower class people are very subtle. This is one of the most pretentious pieces of scribble I've encountered.
