Tom Perrotta

hmmmm...not quite a flop, but maybe my least favorite in my tom perrotta completion journey. i didn't love the switch to first person for brendan's chapters, that was a weird choice to me and i don't think it offered anything special that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. something i typically love about perrotta's characters is how they're all so tangible and human and you GET IT even when they're making all the wrong choices, but in this story i just didn't feel as connected to them or like we had those moments that pulled you in deeper. well, let me rephrase actually: eve certainly had standout moments that were little breadcrumbs i could follow in my mind and really think about her as a character. everyone else sort of fell flat for me in that regard. and the ending just did not hit for me idk… (meer)

i completely understand the section of people who hate open endings of this magnitude but i just eat them up every time. i LOVE and live for the gaps authors leave for me to sit around and think about what they could be filled with. i love the acceptance that i'll never know for sure. i read this after watching the show, so it was fascinating to see the changes the showrunners made from the original story and especially what they ended up leaving behind altogether (justice for jill's shaved head and the GR members at the outpost who fell in love). meg and laurie's storyline had so much life here, i got the time with jill and tom that i desperately wanted, and everyone was just so real. they're messy and fucked up and make the wrong decisions and act out in pain/anger and there aren't resolutions and they don't have time to fix mistakes and they're just dragging themselves through every day full of grief and confusion and i just love them for it!!!!!!!!!!… (meer)

I mostly enjoyed this story about a middle aged single Mom dealing with her empty nest. Like other Tom Perotta books it has a dark, depressing vibe to it although ultimately it's not a super dark book even though it tackles the dark underbelly of loneliness.

It spends a lot of time exploring sexual relationships, gender, sexual fantasy and experimentation and how that differs among people of different generations. That was all interesting to me but might put off some people if they aren't expecting a lot of discussion about porn in their casual reading.

Probably closer to a 4 so really 3.5… (meer)