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69th out of 69 books
—
36 voters
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
by
Ayelet Waldman (Goodreads Author)
In this moving, wry, and candid novel, widely acclaimed novelist Ayelet Waldman takes us through one woman’s passage through love, loss, and the strange absurdities of modern life.
Emilia Greenleaf believed that she had found her soulmate, the man she was meant to spend her life with. But life seems a lot less rosy when Emilia has to deal with the most neurotic and sheltere...more
Emilia Greenleaf believed that she had found her soulmate, the man she was meant to spend her life with. But life seems a lot less rosy when Emilia has to deal with the most neurotic and sheltere...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
January 9th 2007
by Anchor
(first published January 1st 2006)
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It's my fault, really. I put this book on my "to read" list a very, very long time ago, well before I was pregnant. When I saw it in the library, I picked it up without reading the jacket, instead remembering that I had once placed it on my list and therefore it must be something that I can read at any time. Wrong.
Pregnant mothers, especially those who have experienced a previous loss, should not read this while pregnant (or immediately after baby's arrival... not that you have time to read then...more
Pregnant mothers, especially those who have experienced a previous loss, should not read this while pregnant (or immediately after baby's arrival... not that you have time to read then...more
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This book took me WAY by surprise. It sounded great on the cover, bought it on a whim on the bargain bookshelf, and picked it up on a day when I couldn't stomach even one more minute of pharmacy talk.
The beginning was slow, and I didn't even think I was going to get to the middle - as much as I loathe doing it, I thought it was going to have to be one of those books I just don't ever finish. And then...something happened. Nothing concrete. No huge plot twists or dramas. But I connected with the...more
The beginning was slow, and I didn't even think I was going to get to the middle - as much as I loathe doing it, I thought it was going to have to be one of those books I just don't ever finish. And then...something happened. Nothing concrete. No huge plot twists or dramas. But I connected with the...more
A few critics drew parallels between Emilia's life and the author's own; after all, Waldman achieved some sort of fame last year after she publicly announced that she loved her husband, novelist Michael Chabon, more than her four children. Alter-ego or not, Emilia and her evolving relationship with William take center stage here. But while some critics saw Emilia as narcissistic and wallowing in self-pity, others viewed her as a witty, resilient woman honest with her foibles. Critics similarly s
...more
I picked this up because my book club is reading it, but I was thoroughly unmotivated to finish it. After reading the first two chapters I read the last chapter and felt no need to read anything in between.
This book reminded me of The Nanny Diary and the Bridget Jones books in as much as it asked me to feel sympathetic towards a narrator I had no reason to feel sympathy for. The narrator came across as shallow, self-pitying and no one I would care to have a conversation with, let alone follow al...more
This book reminded me of The Nanny Diary and the Bridget Jones books in as much as it asked me to feel sympathetic towards a narrator I had no reason to feel sympathy for. The narrator came across as shallow, self-pitying and no one I would care to have a conversation with, let alone follow al...more
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I picked this up because I enjoyed the silliness of the Mommy Track Mysteries and then, after Waldman made herself a playgroup pariah by announcing on national tv that she could live without her children but not her husband, I wanted to see how she handled more serious family issues.
For the first several chapters of this book I couldn't stand Emilia, the self-absorbed, husband-stealing, evil stepmother, protagonist of this book. Perhaps because she was just so DIFFERENT from me? Yes, she had j...more
For the first several chapters of this book I couldn't stand Emilia, the self-absorbed, husband-stealing, evil stepmother, protagonist of this book. Perhaps because she was just so DIFFERENT from me? Yes, she had j...more
As in the film “The Other Woman” the book it’s based on, “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” is about a young woman who marries a man through an adulterous affair, thus becoming a “home wrecker.” However, life after wedded bliss doesn’t end; greater tragedy after home wrecking truly leads to a pair of wrecked homes following the death of her infant child. The power of loss transcends and permeates everyone: the lead character, who cannot function in her personal life along with the direct and i...more
As long as she’s married to Jack Woolf, Emilia’s life will be hell. Having broken up her husband’s first marriage, Emilia now has to contend with the unpleasant stigma of being seen, not as “Jack Woolf’s wife,” but as “the other woman.” Add to this the fact that Emilia’s newborn daughter died only days after she was born, and you have one miserable woman. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits traces Emilia’s efforts to deal with her grief and her annoying stepson, William, all while trying to keep...more
The writing here is unusually strong. I didn't expect to like the story as much as I did. The characterization is outstanding, and when the narrative voice really fits, ring true. Because of point of view, the secondary characters work unusually well. As the reader, you're right with the main character's epiphanies about the others, which worked for me. Even though I haven't been to Central Park, as a metaphor for relationships, whoa.
This would be an interesting book to do for book club, if onl...more
This would be an interesting book to do for book club, if onl...more
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I got this book at the library on Friday morning, and by Friday at dinnertime, I was done reading it (it's more than 300 pages). Usually, I reserve that kind of uninterrupted reading for things like Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series or the Harry Potter books; books, in other words, where action takes precedence over style and character development.
I still can't figure out of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is chick-lit or not. On the one hand, it's sort of a chick-lit subject: a woman needs...more
I still can't figure out of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is chick-lit or not. On the one hand, it's sort of a chick-lit subject: a woman needs...more
I go back and forth a lot with this one. Waldman does something very interesting in this book and I;m still not sure how I feel about it, and for that I give her a bonus star for what was otherwise a pretty badly written story.
LAOIP is about a lawyer named Emilia who falls madly, desperately in love with Jack, a nice Jewish lawyer who -whoops - happens to be married. Jack resists until he can't anymore and they end up together. Cliche.
Interesting, not cliche aspects that I appreciated:
1 - The id...more
LAOIP is about a lawyer named Emilia who falls madly, desperately in love with Jack, a nice Jewish lawyer who -whoops - happens to be married. Jack resists until he can't anymore and they end up together. Cliche.
Interesting, not cliche aspects that I appreciated:
1 - The id...more
Welllllll...
The character isn't terribly likable, but that isn't fair as she just lost her daughter. A two day old child. Grief is a powerful, life changing thing.
I couldn't put the book down, reading it in two days. I had to know what happened next, would her marriage survive, would she have another kid, could Carolyn be anymore of a bitch? But, I didn't love it. It wraps up too neatly, too cute for me.
Halfway through reading this, I thought i should read more books with female protagonists b...more
The character isn't terribly likable, but that isn't fair as she just lost her daughter. A two day old child. Grief is a powerful, life changing thing.
I couldn't put the book down, reading it in two days. I had to know what happened next, would her marriage survive, would she have another kid, could Carolyn be anymore of a bitch? But, I didn't love it. It wraps up too neatly, too cute for me.
Halfway through reading this, I thought i should read more books with female protagonists b...more
Following through on my self-imposed promise to read another Waldman book after finding fault with "Bad Mother." I enjoyed this one much more. It follows the same general theme - the expectations women put on themselves and others - and has the token cliquey moms sitting in judgment outside the 92nd Street Y. However, Waldman's themes resonated with me much more coupled with fictional characters rather than herself, and her characters, while not particularly likable, didn't have the same mean, "...more
Ho iniziato questo libro con un'idea totalmente diversa da quello che poi in realtà è stato!
Ho avuto due fasi di lettura:
la prima dove stavo LETTERALMENTE odiando i personaggi..tutti..nessuno escluso:
EMILIA: col suo autocommiserarsi su tutto (ok la perdita della figlia e lo shock....ma...) e questa rabbia repressa nei confronti del figlioccio;
CAROLYNE: madre isterica e moglie frustrata che non accetta ancora che la sua famiglia sia finita..e senza rendersene conto fa del male a suo figlio;
WILLIA...more
Ho avuto due fasi di lettura:
la prima dove stavo LETTERALMENTE odiando i personaggi..tutti..nessuno escluso:
EMILIA: col suo autocommiserarsi su tutto (ok la perdita della figlia e lo shock....ma...) e questa rabbia repressa nei confronti del figlioccio;
CAROLYNE: madre isterica e moglie frustrata che non accetta ancora che la sua famiglia sia finita..e senza rendersene conto fa del male a suo figlio;
WILLIA...more
I am not a reader of misery molly type women's fiction usually- there is enough real tragedy in the world to be read in The New York Times (are you listening, Jodi Picoult?), but I've been on an Ayelet Waldman kick lately, and reading her memoirs made me want to read this. It is an irritating and depressing story(terribly sad, the domino event being the death of a newborn), with characters so flawed as to be *almost* insufferable. And yet...I cannot put it down. It's like when you turn to the li...more
I have been on a nice long stretch of really good books lately, this one included, and I hope it continues. As I started reading this book, I looked over some of the reviews here and one that stuck with me is that it was slow in the beginning. I really despise when books are slow in the beginning as I get very bored and can easily put the book down and stop reading it. I do agree that this book was slow, but it was the very very beginning, and before I knew it I was 100 pages in. I liked Ms. Wal...more
I picked up this book because it is going to be a movie soon with Natalie Portman so I figured it was worth a go.*post-edit: I just found out the movie is called 'The Other Woman' and it was released in 2009, missed that one!* I really like the author. I like her style, her prose, her frank discussion of many things. What can get annoying about her writing? Rambling sentences - they can go on and on and on and full of periphal details. And of course the subject matter can weigh on your heart - a...more
This book... so hard to put down... so well written... until the last 50 pages. But to start at the beginning... this novel is the story of so many things. It's the story of a woman who had an affair and a child and a marriage with a married man. Its the story of a woman dealing with the SIDS death of her daughter. It's the story of what happens when we think life can be perfect and it turns out not to be. This novel is the story of so many things, all of them complicated. But the best part is,...more
This is a very funny, poignant and moving book about the loss of a baby and the developing relationship with a step-child. Sad and compellingly funny, a good sense of the narrator; twist of Freudian psychology seems a bit forced, but otherwise this is a modern NYC based book which is a lovesong to Central Park. The city itself plays a clear role as a character in the story.
Another semi-random library choice, "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" by Ayelet Waldman served in part as an exercise in voyeurism: I just wanted to see if Michael Chabon's wife was as gifted a writer as he. The answer to that is a resounding NO, but she's not exactly talentless, either. Despite an endorsement from Sherman Alexie on the jacket blurb, this book falls squarely in the realm of "chick lit", or, more precisely, "depressing snooty-chick lit replete with an ample dose of infidelity...more
I actually regret reading this book. It's not often that an author allows themselves to dwell on an incredibly depressing topic for such a large portion of a book. I couldn't believe my eyes when I got to page 98 only to read a detailed account of the baby's death. I mean, I got it in the first chapter when the stepmom couldn't stand to see strollers! No need to beat me over the head with it. And what up with the detailed adulterous sex and breast-feeding scenes... come on! And since when are po...more
Despite the many, many problems I had with this book, I ultimately enjoyed it. A lot of people have written the main character, Emilia, as whiny and self-pitying - and she is, and she admits it. But I don't think it's too far off considering she'd lost a child and blames herself heavily for the loss. I did enjoy watching her warm up to William, her stepson, and I really liked the tours of Central Park that Waldman took us on. I did not like that the ex-wife and the father were rather two-dimensi...more
This book (by Ayelet Waldman, wife of Michael Chabon who wrote Kavalier & Klay) was a page turner, however, I cant remember despising a main character so much in a long time. What a selfish woman! I did enjoy the new york-centric storytelling, esp. about intricacies of Central Park. I just disliked the character so much it ruined it for me in the end.
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I decided to read this book because I heard the author interviewed a few times and also read her non-fiction work of essays called "Bad Mother".
I had hoped that a work of fiction might make me like this author a little more than I did after reading her non-fiction. I don't.
"Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" was delightful for me because I am a new yorker living in the rural west and I enjoy hearing about my home. If you love Central Park and New York City, the long narratives describing the p...more
I had hoped that a work of fiction might make me like this author a little more than I did after reading her non-fiction. I don't.
"Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" was delightful for me because I am a new yorker living in the rural west and I enjoy hearing about my home. If you love Central Park and New York City, the long narratives describing the p...more
I recently won a Goodreads first-read contest of Waldman's new book, so I wanted to read something older to get a feel for her writing. There is one major uncomfortable subject that this book revolves around, which is DEAD BABIES.
So, knowing that, the book is pretty grim and sad. Emilia Greenleaf Woolf is a Jewish lawyer who is married to Jack, a prominent NYC attorney. Emilia is 10 years younger, and she usurps Jack's perfect marriage + child and marries into a family. The book circles around...more
So, knowing that, the book is pretty grim and sad. Emilia Greenleaf Woolf is a Jewish lawyer who is married to Jack, a prominent NYC attorney. Emilia is 10 years younger, and she usurps Jack's perfect marriage + child and marries into a family. The book circles around...more
I get what Ayelet Waldman was trying to say with this book; love should not consist solely on the idea that it was “meant to be” or that two people are “soulmates.” She was trying to say that love exists more than in the metaphysical. I liked her message that love takes work, and that the only thing holding two people together is the idea that it was preordained (in this case, the Jewish lore of having a Bashert) doesn’t work. However, I feel that the message got incredibly lost amongst the stor...more
I thought this book was ok. It is worth a read if you are a step-mother or have lost a child or suffered from miscarriages or infertility. It is set in NYC and has interesting historical tidbits about the park. But overall I was somewhat disappointed in this book.
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(With Spoilers)
I found it very hard to sympathize with Emilia and her efforts to deal with the loss of Isabel. I may have their names wrong. I did feel like the author did a wonderful job of developing the characters and I'll probably like the novel better after I think about it a few weeks. This was my first book told from the point of view of a "home wrecker". It did kind of feel like she shouldn't have expected happily ever after. The family dynamics were most likely spot on - vindictive, je...more
I found it very hard to sympathize with Emilia and her efforts to deal with the loss of Isabel. I may have their names wrong. I did feel like the author did a wonderful job of developing the characters and I'll probably like the novel better after I think about it a few weeks. This was my first book told from the point of view of a "home wrecker". It did kind of feel like she shouldn't have expected happily ever after. The family dynamics were most likely spot on - vindictive, je...more
Being a stepmom is difficult; being a stepmom after losing a child is nearly impossible. Such is the premise of Waldman’s wonderful and brutally honest novel.
Emilia Greenleaf is not the perfect stepmom. She is filled with grief for the loss of her baby, Isabel, and everyone expects her to go on as though nothing ever happened. Well, she can’t. She never could abide her stepson, William, who is five years old and a know-it-all. And she really cannot stand William’s mother, Carolyn, who clearly ha...more
Emilia Greenleaf is not the perfect stepmom. She is filled with grief for the loss of her baby, Isabel, and everyone expects her to go on as though nothing ever happened. Well, she can’t. She never could abide her stepson, William, who is five years old and a know-it-all. And she really cannot stand William’s mother, Carolyn, who clearly ha...more
Mar 28, 2011
Audrey
added it
This is an interesting look at being a StepMom. Emilia Greenleaf suffering the loss of her first child has to take care of her husband's son- 5 year old William. Every Wed afternoon and many weekends this very bright,horribly spoiled boy raised by an often hysterical mother challenges her.He wonders about her deceased daughter,he insists that all the special treatment ideas dictated by his mother be followed to the letter.He's so serious,watchful,critical,difficult but obviously unhappy.
In spit...more
In spit...more
I loved this book, couldn't put it down - read it in one day flat. I haven't read anything quite like it in a very long time. It's one of those that you get really frustrated and annoyed with the main character, but at the same time totally understand and sympathize with why she does what she does. However, the sole reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because of the author's pretentious overuse of "big"/obscure words. I consider myself well-educated, and well-read with a firm grasp of the...more
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Ayelet Waldman is the author of the forthcoming Love and Treasure (Knopf, January 2014), Red Hook Road and The New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton ha...more
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“Why is it that loving something provides such little protection from betrayal?”
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“Love & Marriage are about work & Compromise. They're about seeing someone for what he is, being disappointed and deciding to stick around anyway. They're about commitment and comfort, not some kind of sudden, hysterical recognition.”
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