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The Boston Girl
By Anita Diamant
Scribner Book Company, Paperback, 9781439199367, August 2015, 336pp.

The Short of It:

This is a story about a young Jewish woman, trying to make a life for herself in Boston during a time when women were just beginning to forge careers for themselves.

The Rest of It:

Addie Baum lives with her family in Boston. As Jewish immigrants, her parents have trouble assimilating to the world around them and prefer to live with the “old ways” and beliefs that they’ve known all their lives. With three daughters, they believe that to be truly successful in life, they must marry well and marry young.

This doesn’t bode well for the Baum girls. Particularly Addie or her troubled older sister. As the three girls make their way through life, we are introduced to a host of supporting characters. All of them interesting but perhaps not all necessary to the story.

Let’s talk about the story a little. I found it to be well told but not terribly exciting. Oddly enough, I managed to read it in just a couple of sittings. It flowed well but it’s really all about Addie’s coming of age which as you can imagine, has some highs and lows. I liked the family dynamic and felt that the author portrayed an immigrant family well.

It wasn’t immediately obvious to me that Addie was telling her story to her grand-daughter until the final pages. I don’t usually care for devices like this but it seemed to work well here.

I haven’t read any stories about immigrant families in a long time so this was a nice change of pace. This was a book club pick but I had a family emergency and was not able to attend the meeting so I have no idea how the discussion went. I imagine it went well. Seems like potentially there would be plenty to discuss but I did feel as if the author was a little light-handed with some of the topics.

If I had to compare this book to Diamant’s other book (The Red Tent), I’d have to say that I enjoyed this one quite a bit more.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Other Voices, Other Rooms
By Truman Capote
(Penguin Books, Limited (UK), Paperback, 9780141187655)

The Short of It:

I have a thing for stories set in dusty little towns and this story is full of flawed characters and crazy happenings.

The Rest of It:

From Indiebound:

At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face–and heart–of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

I’ve read Capote before (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, In Cold Blood and a few of his short stories) so when the book club I belong to selected it for June, I was glad. So far, everything he’s written I’ve enjoyed and I’m happy to say that the same can be said for Other Voices, Other Rooms.

This is a satisfying read and gives you plenty to think about. A perfect book to discuss with a group. Its collection of odd characters and the feverish hallucinations of Joel made me question many times if some of the strange happenings actually happened at all.

Joel’s future in this town seems bleak. Skully’s Landing is a dusty, dreary, dead-end town. It’s not so much a destination as a place where people just end up but its inhabitants lend it a certain charm. I use the term loosely because the characters are not charming but in fact, a product of their surroundings.

One of my favorite characters is Idabel, supposedly modeled after Capote’s real-life friend, Harper Lee. She’s a tomboy, pegged as trouble by the townspeople but full of personality.

This novel is many things. It could be called a coming-of-age novel or a book about self-acceptance or perhaps an exploration into gender identity. Whatever it is, it’s rich and atmospheric and yes, a little strange but in a good way.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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