Blue Shoe
by Anne Lamott
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Read in January, 2005
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Anne Lamott fans
I had mixed feelings about this book. I love Anne Lamott's essays about her own life, so I thought I would love this book. She has a quite simple writing style-- the language is plain and conversational. I don't mean that as a criticism because in some ways that fascinated me, it was so different from three other books I have read by her which are dramatic and full of emotion.
I liked how she (as in her essays) does not shy away from the uglier feelings and moments in life-- especially when ...more
I liked how she (as in her essays) does not shy away from the uglier feelings and moments in life-- especially when ...more
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Read in October, 2007
I enjoyed this book. I moved through it, riding the emotional ebbs & tides it's characters created, filled with sorrow & erupting with laughter. It was hauntingly familiar. As I read it kept bringing back moments of Anne Lamott's own life as if excerpts from her memoirs in new flesh. As with Anne's writing the truth comes to you frankly and you take it as it is. That's how these character's lives are laid bare, in all their shame & all their joy, they are made awkwardly & ende...more
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Read in January, 2007
I liked Blue Shoe. Ann Lamott beautifully captured Mattie. I was very motivated to keep reading. I laughed out loud several times, like when she met a young man and burst out crying and telling him her dog just died. It seemed so very real - it could have happened to me.
Her kids were wonderfully dysfunctional. She painted them very realistically.
There were a few scenes that pushed the envelope too far for me. For no literary reason that I could understand, she brought oral sex ("hea...more
Her kids were wonderfully dysfunctional. She painted them very realistically.
There were a few scenes that pushed the envelope too far for me. For no literary reason that I could understand, she brought oral sex ("hea...more
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Read in January, 2008
I luuurve Anne Lamott -- her style, her wit, her acceptance of the chaos that is life. She just makes you feel better about being alive.
The first portion of the book was a delight to read. As usual, Lamott presents us with the ideal, like loving your neighbor, and juxtaposes it with the complicated reality, like coveting your neighbor's husband. And you laugh out loud when she highlights our utter(ly hilarious) inability to be perfect.
I found myself liking the book less and less, thou...more
The first portion of the book was a delight to read. As usual, Lamott presents us with the ideal, like loving your neighbor, and juxtaposes it with the complicated reality, like coveting your neighbor's husband. And you laugh out loud when she highlights our utter(ly hilarious) inability to be perfect.
I found myself liking the book less and less, thou...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in February, 2008
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Read in June, 2008
Oh my, oh my, oh my! I really don't know what to say about this book except ... oh my, oh my, oh my!
Anne Lamott is such an incredibly talented and honesty writer, but this is a big unwieldy mess of a book. There are little gems in the writing, in the characterizations, and in the telling of this novel, which saves it, for me, from an "I hated it" rating. The problem is that it tackles too many storylines and ultimately doesn't do any of them justice. In the laundry list of conflict...more
Anne Lamott is such an incredibly talented and honesty writer, but this is a big unwieldy mess of a book. There are little gems in the writing, in the characterizations, and in the telling of this novel, which saves it, for me, from an "I hated it" rating. The problem is that it tackles too many storylines and ultimately doesn't do any of them justice. In the laundry list of conflict...more
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Read in January, 2008
I'd actually give this 3.5 stars. I do love everything Anne Lamott writes, but this book didn't hit me as much as some of her others have. It started off really strong, and then I kind of lost interest about 3/4 of the way through. Maybe it was just my mood or timing ...
The characters are wonderfully created and real. They are people with problems trying to do their best in life. Themes found in Lamott's other writing show up here and are appropriate: grace, faith, honesty, emotional baggag...more
The characters are wonderfully created and real. They are people with problems trying to do their best in life. Themes found in Lamott's other writing show up here and are appropriate: grace, faith, honesty, emotional baggag...more
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Read in January, 2007
I used to read books all the way through, even if I didn't like them, but Blue Shoe is the book that broke the habit. Maybe the characters were just too centralized--as in, they weren't terrible or wonderful enough to be interesting, just somewhere in the middle--but with constant dull flashbacks and a dull present unfolding on the pages, this book had no future for me. Maybe it's aimed exclusively towards middle-aged divorced women (which, not surprisingly, both Lamott and main character are), ...more
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With all the joy I got from reading and rereading Travelling Mercies (one of my all-time favorites) and Operating Instructions (the best baby memoir-type book I've seen), it's a surprise to me that I'm not crazy about her other books. Had I not read the first two, I probably would have liked Blue Shoe and all of her other novels, but I feel spoiled that she set the bar so high with those books. Her other books to me fall in the "other" category. They all feel too familiar to each ot...more
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Read in February, 2008
I love Anne Lamott's non-fiction, and I greatly enjoyed Hard Laughter (the only other fiction book of hers I've read to date), but this one disappointed me. While I suppose it was a well-drawn portrayal of a divorcee who is co-dependent on both her ex-husband and her married best friend, it was deeply sad. There was little redemption and not much about any of the characters that I liked. I felt sorry for them, but I didn't like them. Add to this the "Jesus loves you anyway" religio...more
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Read in February, 2008
Main character, Mattie Ryder, is a single mother who is trying to raise her two misbehaving children in the midst of chaos. Her house is failing part, she is looking for love in all the wrong places, and dealing with her aging mother. While searching for her father's hidden past she comes across a tiny rubber blue shoe which is nothing more than a gumball trinket which could hang on a keychain. This serves as a talisman for her. Follow along with this pathetic character. Story takes place in ...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
Single moms with cheating husbands who secretly love the handyman
This was my first fiction book by Lamott. I absolutely love her nonfiction style and, heck, her prose in general but this book never quite took off for me. The story was kind of boring and the main character kind of irritated me. Then again, the writing was sometimes beautiful and full of sentences you wish you'd thought up. I'm torn between a three and a four but I think it's more because I love Lamott and feel she deserves a four on anything than that Blue Shoe actually deserves a four. To get...more
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Read in January, 2008
I can't believe it has taken me so long to read this book. I love it so far (almost finished), especially the main character, Mattie. She's such a broken imperfect soul. I admire her desire to really live and feel and experience and love. I have laughed out loud many many times at Harry and Ella, her children. At times the story wanders a little out of focus, some passages feel a bit repetitive due to the down to earth, day-to-day nature of the storytelling. But these are fun, fleshy characters ...more
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Read in February, 2008
This was my first fiction book by Lamott. I adore her non-fiction, inspirational books and wanted to branch out. I'm still working out my thoughts on it, so there will be a more involved review later, but briefly, I liked it. I kept thinking of her nonfiction though...comparing it, wondering if Harry was doing things that Sam had done in real life. It was a good and quick read, but I felt not quite as satisfied as I am when I read her other stuff. Need to think on this more and get my thoughts c...more
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Read in February, 2008
Ok - not too impressed. While this started off in a manner that intrigued me, by the end the characters each had a mess of issues that were too much to deal with and develop well while maintaining the story-line.
It was an interesting peek into the world of a nominal, but committed "Christian." This aspect of the book opened my eyes to what I believe may be a pervasive subculture in the Christian-community. Thoughts of God flow in and out of one's thought-life without ever really i...more
It was an interesting peek into the world of a nominal, but committed "Christian." This aspect of the book opened my eyes to what I believe may be a pervasive subculture in the Christian-community. Thoughts of God flow in and out of one's thought-life without ever really i...more
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Read in June, 2008
It doesn't speak so well of this book that I was about 1/3 of the way into it when I remembered I'd read it before. But it was at least interesting enough that I went ahead and finished it again. Good story, good characters, good descriptions, and Ann Lamott's subtle humor. I'm not sure exactly what it's missing to be great, but there's something. Still, a nice book.
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Read in February, 2007
I wanted to like this book. It seems as though the author didn't herself have kids or else just didn't get it, because every part that had to do with the woman and her children seemed so off the reservation for me it just made the whole story completely unbelievable and contrived. Also the whole religion thing was not entirely consistent either with the woman's behavior or attitudes towards others, like she went to church with earphones on.
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Read in October, 2007
Oh, Annie Lamott, why must your fiction be so disappointing? As always, it's a pleasant enough read, but you get the impression that she's just sort of writing down things that happen to her every day, then stringing them together as novel--much as she recommends doing in Bird by Bird, her wonderful book on writing. The difference is that in Bird by Bird you're reminded to go back and edit your work. Here, not so much.
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Read in May, 2007
I really like Anne Lamott's memoirs (Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Operating Instructions, Plan B), wanted to try some of her fiction. It is good, not great. Like her life, her characters have messy complicated lives and try to make them work and find God at work. Glad I read it but would recommend L'Engle's "A Live Coal in the Sea" instead of this one as it deals with these areas more subtly and possibly more eloquently...
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