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What Members Thought
I had such high hopes! Loved the cover and the premise, but reading The Boston Girl was a slog.
I absolutely loved the narrator of this coming-of-age-in-America story, Addie Baum. The conceit - an 85 year old grandmother being interviewed by her 20-something granddaughter - is precious, but luckily the storytelling wasstraightforward, sometimes startlingly so. That matter-of-fact tone and refusal to linger helped to strike a balance between emotional impact and momentum (it was a really fast read), and it drove the story through many landmarks of early 20th c. American history at a rapid (
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This was an excellent book. In the 1st chapter Addie's great-granddaughter asks her how she became the woman she is today. The resulting story is wonderful - the good times, the drama, the very lows, dealing with parents who openly prefer one daughter over another, personal struggles, and at long last love that is true. It just proves that foul language, explicit sexual situations & unnecessary violence doesn't have to be a major part of a book for it to be enjoyable.
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I liked but didn't love this book. Maybe I was expecting more because I adored The Red Tent but the book reminded me of the Belva Plain immigrant family sagas that I read in the 1980s. I felt like I had been there and done that already.
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“People don’t talk so much about bad memories.”
Perhaps it is the narrative conceit itself that lends itself to optimism.
The Boston Girl is told from the perspective of 85-year-old Addie Baum, who tells the story of her life to her 22-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her the loaded question: “How did you get to be the woman you are today?”
. . .
Read my full review at: https://halfwaytoamidlifecrisis.wordp... ...more
Perhaps it is the narrative conceit itself that lends itself to optimism.
The Boston Girl is told from the perspective of 85-year-old Addie Baum, who tells the story of her life to her 22-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her the loaded question: “How did you get to be the woman you are today?”
. . .
Read my full review at: https://halfwaytoamidlifecrisis.wordp... ...more
Great voice, engaging story, lots of fun without glossing over the worse aspects of the past.
Dec 01, 2015
Kara
marked it as to-read
Dec 07, 2015
Robbi C
marked it as to-read
Feb 01, 2016
Kit
marked it as to-read
Feb 15, 2016
Emily Childress-Campbell
marked it as to-read
Oct 30, 2016
Tiffany
marked it as to-read
