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Loading... Anywhere but Hereby Mona Simpson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is by-far one of my all time favorite books! I have read it twice. At times I can relate to Ann and at times I can relate to Adele. I'll probly read it again someday. (  )djfox | Jul 6, 2009 |   A mother with big dreams moves with her daughter from Wisconsin to Beverly Hills. It took forever to get through this meandering story told from different characters' viewpoints. Maybe the movie is more compelling. (  )ennie | Oct 13, 2008 | Ann August’ mother refuses to be ordinary...the very thing that her adolescent daughter longs for most. Adele August, mother of Ann, is a high spirited woman who doesn't fit the profile of a mom. "Strangers always love my mother," Ann tells us early on. Ann is sometimes torn between loving and hating her mother, as are most teen-age girls, but most mothers aren’t grandiose, manipulative, and narcissistic. Ann states,”it’s always people like my mother who start the noise, and bang things, who make you feel the worst; they are the ones who get your love.” ; which by common knowledge is the response pattern of most abused people and animals for that matter. Adele yearns for a life in California, where life will be beautiful and Ann will become a famous television star. But her lifelong dream and goal turns out, like many things in the Augusts' lives, to be lackluster when it becomes reality. She pushes Ann towards a direction she thinks will be great for her, wanting to give her daughter a life she didn't have. She forces Ann to become the adult and to be the one to think logically. Anywhere But Here is dense with misery and amazement all tangled together--a realistic and thus rare portrait of love. (  )siubhank | Oct 22, 2007 | None of the characters were sympathetic. Mother is weird and neurotic. ( )bookheaven | Jul 19, 2006 | From Publishers Weekly Ann, the narrator of this engaging look at mother-daughter relationships, is uprooted from Bay City, Wis., by her mother, Adele, so that she can become a child star in Los Angeles. PW praised Simpson for her "grasp of human relationships and sheer readability." Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. gnewfry | Feb 1, 2006 |  0.076 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0679737383, Paperback)"Strangers always love my mother," Ann August tells us at the start of Anywhere But Here. "And even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair." Indeed, over the course of the dozen or so years chronicled in Mona Simpson's first novel, Ann and everyone else related to the charming, delusional Adele learn this the hard way. Ann does hate her at times; Adele does indeed come pretty close to ruining Ann's life on numerous occasions, or at least scarring it, and yet, ultimately, it isn't possible not to love her. As Ann puts it: "The thing about my mother and me is that when we get along we're just the same."This is a woman who uproots her child from Wisconsin and moves to Los Angeles, leaving behind a dull husband (not Ann's father--who wandered off long ago but makes appearances here in memories), under the premise that life will be beautiful and Ann will become a famous television star. But her lifelong dream and goal ("It was our secret, a nighttime whispered promise" turns out, like so many things in the Augusts' lives, to be lackluster when it becomes reality. Adele merely feeds on fantasy and drags her daughter along. Nevertheless, it's hard not to worship her. We hear from her mother, her sister, from Ann, and finally from Adele herself, and no matter how she's used people, what trouble she's gotten into, or what lies she's told--and there are plenty of all three--a certain amount of awe always remains. When we come upon Ann's proclamation that "it's always the people like my mother, who start the noise and bang things, who make you feel the worst; they are the ones who get your love." It's startling to realize how heartily we agree with her. Anywhere But Here gives truth to this statement in a way that few books ever have. It's dense with misery and amazement all tangled together--a realistic and thus rare portrait of love. --Melanie Rehak (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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