Afbeelding auteur

Debra Galant

Auteur van Rattled

3 Werken 180 Leden 10 Besprekingen

Werken van Debra Galant

Rattled (2006) 95 exemplaren
Fear and Yoga in New Jersey (2008) 65 exemplaren
Cars from a Marriage (2010) 20 exemplaren

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geslacht
female
Nationaliteit
USA
Woonplaatsen
Northern New Jersey, USA
Relaties
Levinson, Warren (spouse)

Leden

Besprekingen


With Presidents now caught with their pants down, sports heroes just looking for money, and the politics of the workplace, all I had was my visits to my yoga studio for solace. I kept a safe distance from my yoga teachers wanting to believe there are some sane people in this world.

So, I picked up this book to give some depth to my 2d yogi heroes. I shouldn't have.

The characters were unlikeable, especially the yoga teacher. The characters just kept shooting themselves in the foot and stuck in their own little world.

I had to finish to see where this accident would go and how they would tie all this together at the end.

Perhaps, it if were Jewish and more suburban I would enjoy this more. But for now, this book best serves as contrast and appreciation for the next book which I will surely enjoy more than this.

… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
wellington299 | 3 andere besprekingen | Feb 19, 2022 |
Very clear descriptions of quite a collection of characters interacting----and what fun! Really a great story to read for escapist entertainment!
 
Gemarkeerd
nyiper | 1 andere bespreking | May 17, 2014 |
"I've always thought of cars as places to die. That's what high school driver's ed did to me."

That's the oh-so-catchy opening of Debra Gallant's tale of marriage as told through cars. We first meet Ivy Honeycutt just as she has transplanted herself from the Virginia of her upbringing to a New York City that's not quite made up of the Hollywood myths she'd imagined. When she attends a supposedly free open mic comedy night that ends with two $4 Diet Cokes she can't afford, she finds herself being rescued from humiliation and total meltdown by Ellis Halpern, a stand-up comedian and a rare New York City car owner.

Told in chapters alternating between Ivy's and Ellis's points of view, Cars From a Marriage follows the couple from their initial trip to meet Ellis's mother to their moving to suburban New Jersey to raise their two daughters, one serious and studious, the other pretty and precocious. The chapters, which move along chronologically but skip several years in between in favor of highlighting the more momentous events of the marriage, each begin with the car the couple happens to be driving during that time period, usually one forced on Ellis by Ivy's well-meaning Buick dealer father. Soon Ellis is in L.A. more and more often grooming new talent for his PR agency and Ivy is returning to writing school, and the couple's marriage is becoming something they'd never dreamed of.

Cars From a Marriage is a deceptively easy read with a serious story to tell. Gallant's writing flows easily from event to event and captures the nuances of a marriage that sows the seeds of its own struggle from its very first stages. The writing is uncomplicated, at times laugh out loud funny, at others terribly sad and ironic. The ease with which Cars From a Marriage reads would almost lead you to believe that it's a fluffy story, but it's certainly not. It's a far more serious story about a woman whose fears and insecurities have kept her from living and a man who loves his wife, but always envisioned a bit more for himself than a needy housewife, two kids, and the controlled chaos of suburbia.

Perhaps it was the easy, uncomplicated writing style that always had me expecting fluff when there was none to be had, that made it possible for the ending to catch me unawares. It was abrupt and not quite what I was expecting. I thought that the end of Ivy's story could have done with a bit more fleshing out, thought I also fear that had it been fleshed out, it might have taken the focus away from the marriage and put it only on her, which I don't think was the intent. Ultimately, though, despite the unexpected end, I enjoyed Cars From a Marriage. It's a compulsively readable and honest exploration of an imperfect marriage that is as smart and perceptive as it is entertaining.
… (meer)
½
 
Gemarkeerd
yourotherleft | 3 andere besprekingen | Sep 24, 2010 |
Cars From a Marriage is a portrait of the marriage of Ivy and Ellis. Debra Galant uses their various cars to begin each chapter, illustrating what their cars say about them and where they are in life's journey. Its a rocky road for the two of them as they have two kids, then Ellis finds himself increasingly away from home on business. Ellis cruises the coast of California while Ivy must conquer her fear of driving in New Jersey.

I read Debra Galant's other two books and found them hysterically funny. Unfortunately Cars From a Marriage just didn't live up to them, for me. It was mostly a sad story of a doomed marriage and two people so lost they have no chance of finding their way back to each other. I didn't find this book funny at all! The use of cars in telling the story was interesting and worked well, I just didn't care for the plot.… (meer)
½
 
Gemarkeerd
frisbeesage | 3 andere besprekingen | Jun 14, 2010 |

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Statistieken

Werken
3
Leden
180
Populariteit
#119,865
Waardering
2.9
Besprekingen
10
ISBNs
9

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