Anywhere But Here is a moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer. As they tr...
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Oct 05, 2011
Rebecca
rated it: 
I saw this movie like a million years ago and I keep forgetting to add this book to my queue, until there was a mention in EW a few weeks back because the author wrote a new book, so they mentioned her best selling old one, this title. I was greatly disappointed! I don't know why, it was totally different from the movie, which I have seen a million times and love. The core characters were the same and the story was sort of similar, but it is a total "based on" movie and not "adapt
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Jul 06, 2009
marg
rated it: 
I vacillated between two and three stars for this one - a lot of what I disliked were actually the book's strengths - but felt too negatively to go the extra star.
This book centers around a selfish, immature and heavily delusional mother who packs up her daughter and runs off to California to pursue the daughter's Hollywood career. Through a series of linked annecdotes and flashbacks the reader eventually pieces together all the ways this mother has let Ann down and in many ways created th More...
This book centers around a selfish, immature and heavily delusional mother who packs up her daughter and runs off to California to pursue the daughter's Hollywood career. Through a series of linked annecdotes and flashbacks the reader eventually pieces together all the ways this mother has let Ann down and in many ways created th More...
Jul 13, 2011
Stacey
rated it:
I'm sort of undecided about this one. At first (and actually probably until about halfway through the book) I really liked it. I was ok with the meandering plot because I enjoyed her style of writing and her ability to make you empathize with the characters. I didn't mind reading the same event from different characters' perspectives. However, my enthusiasm dropped off after sticking with it and waiting for something monumental to happen. But I just finished the book, and here I am, still w
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Dec 26, 2011
I finished this a few days ago. I like the shifts in voices and Adele's ambiguity. I like the jumps from Bay City to Beverly Hills and I especially like the scene's with Ann's father. I wish I read this before My Hollywood.
There's something about the book that feels apprehensive rather than relevatory. I think there's a sterility in here that makes me feel very distant from the protagonist. Even though I want to sympathize with Ann, I hold back and I can't quite figure out why. My deta More...
There's something about the book that feels apprehensive rather than relevatory. I think there's a sterility in here that makes me feel very distant from the protagonist. Even though I want to sympathize with Ann, I hold back and I can't quite figure out why. My deta More...
May 09, 2011
Brice
rated it: 
Great multi-generational physchological study of the female coming-of-age experience! Also, a STELLAR first novel by Steve Jobs' biological sister.
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Sep 07, 2009
Blake
rated it:
I enjoyed this a lot, I was surprised after when reading, that some of the other reviews were more negative. It was long at times and somewhat meandering, and I'm not sure how I'd explain the book to someone, but it was interesting. I definately know people like the mother, and they make me sad also. I wasn't sure what to make of the daughter, at times I really liked her and then other times did not. Similar to how I felt about the grandmother at times... The interfamily dynamics were interestin
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Feb 07, 2012
Carol
rated it: 
A brilliantly drawn portrait of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship (along with tour-de-force sketches of their kin) that is both eccentric and eerily familiar. We can't believe such a selfish, smart, dysfunctional mother exists, yet still empathize and even recognize flashes of our own motives in her. We ache for the daughter and wonder how she will survive and keep bouncing back (and always again toward her mother!) This is one of those master novels that makes cinema-lovers like m
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Aug 02, 2011
Caitlin
rated it:
This book was wonderful! I love Simpson's writing style and the way the perspective bounced back and forth between several characters was great. The perspective of Ann was what I enjoyed most, and that was heavily featured, but the sprinkling-in of first-person narration from other characters was great to read. I really like that the last few pages were from the perspective of Adele, because she is the one whose head we as readers want to get inside of throughout the story, and finally we get to
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Apr 24, 2009
Diana
rated it:
This gets 3.5 stars. It wasn't bad, but it just completely lacked structure. It meanders along episodically for several hundred pages, not necessarily chronologically, but not with any meaningful pattern of switching between past, present, and future. It was too long for a book in which very little actually happens, and there were so many characters and digressions that took up hundreds of pages but barely figured into the story at all. The last chapter is kind of a cheap, tacked on Happy Ending
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Oct 28, 2009
Neurotic mother Adele leaves the midwest & her husband with her daughter,Ann, to seek stardom for her. Ann starts as a believer & one who wants to be exactly like her mother. Various female members of the family tell the story, addressing it to Ann. Adele's single admirable trait: her capacity for wonder. Ann eventually goes off to college & for years avoids going home even to visit. The End: Adele: she is the reason I was born. The book was made into a movie with Susan Sarandon & Natalie
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Dec 04, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
I picked up this book from the library where I work. Simpson's prose is lovely but the book ended up feeling like a slog to get through. There's no real plot, and one of the main characters is so infuriating I just got sick of reading about her doing the same annoying, narcissistic things over and over again. I much preferred the few, short sections from the older women's perspective that evoked the Midwest of the past where small towns were actually thriving and people appreciated the quiet
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Aug 08, 2010
Roland
rated it:
Mona Simpson's debut novel is pretty much a memoir, which could be titled "This Girl's Life." It's a tale of a single mother (Adele) and her daughter (Ann) and the challenges they face over the years, first in Wisconsin where Adele's from and later in SoCal when Ann's a tween/teen and her mother has delusions of making her a child star.
Of interest to me, which I discovered only after starting this book, is that Simpson is married to Richard Appel, producer of The Simpsons, More...
Of interest to me, which I discovered only after starting this book, is that Simpson is married to Richard Appel, producer of The Simpsons, More...
Nov 02, 2008
Wfbcreeds
rated it:
"Strangers always love my mother," Ann August tells us at the start of Anywhere But Here. "And even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair." Indeed, over the course of the dozen or so years chronicled in Mona Simpson's first novel, Ann and everyo
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Aug 04, 2009
Steph
rated it:
Daughter, Ann and mother, Adele August travel from Wisconsin to California to make Ann a television star. Leaving behind husbands and boyfriends, Adele deludes herself into thinking she can alter their utilitarian lives.
Ann's narration keeps me in her nervous, angry state of mind, but Adele is the star here. A most memorable character, Adele: charming and full of all types of deception. A great story of the love-hate complication of being mother and daughter.
Ann's narration keeps me in her nervous, angry state of mind, but Adele is the star here. A most memorable character, Adele: charming and full of all types of deception. A great story of the love-hate complication of being mother and daughter.
Aug 07, 2011
Matthew
rated it:
I recently reread this book and loved it. I think Simpson sets the stage for many of the disenchanted teenage girls who have since become so important in the cultural dialogue (I'm thinking about My So-Called Life and Daria, maybe even Buffy), or at least among Gen-Xers, and the mother Adele is a pitch-perfect description of someone sadly/hilariously on the brink of losing her sanity. I will never not love this book, sorry haters!
Sep 15, 2010
Margaret
rated it: 
Ok, I get it. Adele is unreliable. No one has the same story, even about the same events. It's time to get ice cream and make more bad decisions.
Three fourths of the way in and I don't know what the plot is. I don't know what the characters need to resolve. I don't even know what they want.
I'll try Mona Simpson's later work and right now, this post-MFA funk, I may not be an ideal (or even decent) reader. Sorry, Mona. Let's just say it's not you and it's not me and move on
Three fourths of the way in and I don't know what the plot is. I don't know what the characters need to resolve. I don't even know what they want.
I'll try Mona Simpson's later work and right now, this post-MFA funk, I may not be an ideal (or even decent) reader. Sorry, Mona. Let's just say it's not you and it's not me and move on
Feb 01, 2012
Marjorie
rated it:
Slow, boring and dull, this book disappoints. The last straw was when the daughter starts taking semi-pornographic photos of other children. I don't find this engaging or entertaining. It just gives me a bad feeling all over.
Nor did I find the mother to be a particularly engaging character.
I tried three times to read this book and finally gave up.
Nor did I find the mother to be a particularly engaging character.
I tried three times to read this book and finally gave up.
Jul 15, 2009
Florence
rated it:
A long and intimate look at a mother-daughter relationship and some extended family members. The mother was a complex character - both abusive and loving. The crux of the story was Ann's struggle to become an adult while caught in her mother's delusional world. The book made me want to go out and get ice cream since Ann and her mother, Adele were always indulging themselves.
Mar 09, 2009
Geraldine
rated it:
This book has two major strikes against it: the fact that it was later made into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman, and the fact that there is neither plot not conclusion. But I still loved the writing and the characterization of everyone except the mother character, who was clearly supposed to be this charming but shiftless Unique Person, and I had very little sympathy for her. But I loved a lot of the other voices in the book, especially the sections that were told from the
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Nov 23, 2011
Mel
rated it:
This was a good chronicle of the "American dream" in the eyes if a nutty mother and her daughter. This lengthy book follows the daughter from her experiences in early childhood to college years. It was ok. It kept me reading but it's nothing I got too excited about.
The last 100 pages or so were fragmented and seemed to just summarize in almost bulleted paragraphs what happened in the years the daughter was away... A but strange
The last 100 pages or so were fragmented and seemed to just summarize in almost bulleted paragraphs what happened in the years the daughter was away... A but strange
Sep 22, 2011
Pam
rated it:
While I didn't always like the two main characters or some of the choices they made, I still enjoyed reading the book. The mother was completely over the top and it's a good thing children's services didn't catch on to her style of mothering, but she was definitely an interesting character.
Aug 29, 2011
Kevin G G
rated it:
I loved this book.
I think of it from time to time and if I can't find my copy I buy it again.
I love the pitch perfect chapters from different characters points of view.
It wasn't the story that gets me to come back to this book over and over.
It's the writing that inspires me.
I think of it from time to time and if I can't find my copy I buy it again.
I love the pitch perfect chapters from different characters points of view.
It wasn't the story that gets me to come back to this book over and over.
It's the writing that inspires me.
Jan 12, 2011
Michelle
rated it:
Some parts were touching but it felt a little like an epic family drama without a focus, and it felt like it took forever to get through. I did not want to still be reading it in 2011 so I forced myself to read the last 100 pages on New Year's eve day.
May 27, 2009
Denny
rated it:
Folks looking for a plot driven novel won't like this one.
The beauty of this novel is in the quality of the writing and the depth of the characters.
The abrupt switching of narrators is grating but the writing is absorbing enough to overcome this.
The beauty of this novel is in the quality of the writing and the depth of the characters.
The abrupt switching of narrators is grating but the writing is absorbing enough to overcome this.
May 01, 2011
Megan
rated it:
I just couldn't connect with any of the characters in this book. I felt actively repelled rather than engaged, despite some lovely language and interesting imagery. At the end of the day, I wanted more of a story.
Mar 31, 2011
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1105...
I don't understand the reviews on the cover that said 'funny'. More tragic and disturbing. The different points of view was an interesting way to tell the story but Ann's story is really the most interesting one and Carol's narratives can be disruptive, even if they fill in the blanks. It seemed to complete peter out at the end but the final 3 or 4 pages of Adele's narrative blindsided me. She is a difficult character and I didn't find anythin More...
I don't understand the reviews on the cover that said 'funny'. More tragic and disturbing. The different points of view was an interesting way to tell the story but Ann's story is really the most interesting one and Carol's narratives can be disruptive, even if they fill in the blanks. It seemed to complete peter out at the end but the final 3 or 4 pages of Adele's narrative blindsided me. She is a difficult character and I didn't find anythin More...
Jan 13, 2010
Season
rated it:
Just couldn't do it. I tried I really tried. It was not badly written, just meandered on with no seeming point. By the 80th page I cheateed and read the end(which I really try not to do.) When I read the end and still didn't care, I gave up.
Jan 04, 2009
Sapna
rated it:
The author spends an inordinate amount of space on describing the dysfunction of the narrator's family, specifically her mother, only to deprive us of any kind of conclusion to their lives.
Jun 03, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
I hadn't known this was a book, I've seen the movie hundreds of times and thought it would be as good as the movie. Turns out this is one of those instances where the movie was a whole lot better.
Sep 16, 2010
Astraia
rated it:
Much better book than a movie. The book is neither oversentimental nor hostile. Poignant moments are not over done and give the book a greater impact that stays with you after reading.
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