This novel is a meandering tour through two generations of distinct, yet intertwining Chicago families. My favorite character, by far, was the thoroughly unlikeable Lana Rovner, possibly the most annoying 7th grader I've ever met in fiction or reality. Lana manages to be both a manipulative and ambitious snob as well as an awkward and painfully naive tween.Langer sets the novel against the backdrop of the Iran hostage crisis, ending on Inauguration Day, 1981. Why these 444 days? As Langer writes in the author's note:"Crossing California deals with a period of transition in my life, as well as in Chicago and America.... Memory tends to simplify matters, but with the exception of very recent history in America, I can't recall a time in our country during which the mood and political climate shifted so quickly."Included are a neighborhood map in the front, and a glossary in the back. The glossary is amusing, if not essential reading. ( )

witty, funny, good and easy read....Jill and Mulley are great characters. ( )

One of my favorite books in a long time. Loved the characters and the author's details made me remember parts of my own childhood that I'd forgotten. ( )

not a mind-blowing piece of fiction, but certainly clever and insightful; a unique, entertaining read about kids in chicago in the 70s ( )

couldn't finish!! ( )

I read this because I live in the Chicago area. Not being from that neighborhood, nor jewish, I didn't have a lot in common with the characters. A good, but not great, book. ( )

On the surface, I really have nothing to relate to the characters in this book - while it's set in Chicago, it's not in a part of Chicago I've ever been to. Similarly, I'm not (nor have I ever been) a Jewish teenager, and the events of this book end a few months before I was even born. Still, the characters are incredibly and instantly understandable and sympathetic, even though they're not really nice people. Maybe because they're not nice people, makes them real. Also, this book is one of the funniest things I've read in a while, not in a Christopher Moore kind of way, but partly just from the pathetic realness of it all. The sections from the point of view of Larry the masturbator set me laughing uncontrollably for minutes at a time. ( )