My Name Is Lucy Barton (2016)

Sorry but I just didn't get it. I enjoyed Ms. Strout's prose and wanted to keep reading but kept waiting for something of substance to happen. At the insertion of the stories relating to Sarah Payne I nearly put the book down - why are we going there. Readable but frustrating, I'm glad it was short. ( )

After reading some reviews, I apparently missed a key part about her relationship with her father. I just thought he wasn't a great guy. It is a quiet book is the best way I can describe it. The writing style is very unique. ( )

From the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Olive Kitteridge. In this slim volume, a young mother is recovering from a surgery gone bad in a New York hospital sometime in the 1980's in the shadow of the Chrystler Building. She is missing her husband and children, who cannot visit her. One day, her estranged mother shows up and spends five days with her in the hospital, and from there the story begins. The simple, almost child-like narrative is jarring at first, until one realizes that her mother's visit has caused the protagonist, Lucy Barton, to revert to the insecure, abused and abandoned child she once was, still hoping for some show of affection from her mother. The story slips by like snapshots from the past and casts shadows on Lucy's childhood, marriage, writing career and her relationships, including those with her daughters. It is a poignant read of "poverty and abuse," but also of love, which is so fragile, yet resilient as well. ( )

Clear and bright. Such writing just flows and feels so real.

What a strange book. I was into it at the beginning. I wanted to know what happens to her and if she'll make it out of the hospital. Then it became really weird. I feel I'm reading Lucy Barton's diary but she forgot to write the dates. Some how her diary was torn apart and someone put it back together without reading it. Thank goodness towards the end each story became shorter and shorter until it was half a page long. It was pretty depressing. I know she was happy, maybe she was happy. I don't know. ( )