From the Bookshelf of What's the Name of That Book???…

The Shame

Makenna Goodman

Why we're reading this: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...…more
[close] https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Dec 06, 2023 Misha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: doorway-people, doorway-prose, female-protagonist, doorway-place, motherhood, new-england, debut, modern-malaise, read-2023

I appreciate books that present the minute and tactile elements of a life. Here is an example of the kind of detail that delights me for its specificity:

"I put my water bottle down onto the cough drop wrappers in the cup holder and saw a half-sucked one stuck to the console. Next to it was a crust of stale bread and some broken baby sunglasses, like bird skeletons. My engine light was on. What was I doing?" (3)

Alma is a married mother of two in rural Vermont who takes pleasure in many aspects of I appreciate books that present the minute and tactile elements of a life. Here is an example of the kind of detail that delights me for its specificity:

"I put my water bottle down onto the cough drop wrappers in the cup holder and saw a half-sucked one stuck to the console. Next to it was a crust of stale bread and some broken baby sunglasses, like bird skeletons. My engine light was on. What was I doing?" (3)

Alma is a married mother of two in rural Vermont who takes pleasure in many aspects of her life, but yearns for more. She thinks about writing and carving out a space of her own, a life and sense of self to be proud of. Then she sees an effortlessly chic single mother and artist online--Celeste--whose every Insta story hints at a better, more fulfilled, more curated and amazing life. This obsession takes on more dimensionality throughout the story, and the culmination was not what I expected.

Additional passages:

"What is my sadness? My mind races, and my thoughts are jumbled together like the random detritus at the bottom of a purse. That I am more like my mother than I wish to admit. That I have been set on a treadmill and it's moving too fast. That my kids can't be sheltered from the shit of the world. That my daughter might be raped in an empty parking lot. That my son will benefit from a culture that degrades women. That both could be killed in a shooting at school. That one of them could be the shooter. That we are being recorded, so algorithms can sell us things we don't need. That I've lost my last chance at living in northern Italy as a twentysomething, riding my bike around, diving into lakes; that I have enough money to craft a certain kind of vacation fantasy but not enough money to actually act on it this winter or the next winter. That even if I changed my mind about wanting kids, I couldn't erase the fact that I have them already, that I'm trapped, that I'm responsible for them, and that if I left them--which I just did--I'd be a horrible person, and everyone would say so, and I would never be able to escape the pain of both being a bad mother and being without them, even if I got on a plane and went to Italy and never came back." (34-5)

If you like intimate novels about woman navigating the modern malaise of the schism between the lives we live and the lives we wish we lived, this is for you. A solid read-alike for a Jenny Offill fan. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2020 Chrissy marked it as to-read

Sep 21, 2022 Kate marked it as to-read

Group Home Bookshelf Discussions

Photos Videos

Send invite Members Polls