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The Boston Girl

by Anita Diamant

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,68412410,442 (3.73)58
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century. Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine--a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her "How did you get to be the woman you are today." She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naive girl she was and a wicked sense of humor. Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman's complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world"--… (more)
  1. 10
    Away by Amy Bloom (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: Although Away's stylistically complex narrative covers more ground than The Boston Girl, both novels introduce Jewish immigrant women whose outsider status compels them to create independent lives while making sense of 20th-century American society.… (more)
  2. 10
    Triangle by Katharine Weber (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: In these novels, elderly Jewish women -- one from New York's Lower East Side, the other from Boston's North End -- recount their life stories to interviewers, in the process vividly depicting people and places responsible for shaping their identities.… (more)
  3. 10
    A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (gypsysmom)
    gypsysmom: Also about a poor immigrant girl but I thought it was more effective at conveying the time and circumstances.
  4. 10
    The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott (vwinsloe)
    vwinsloe: The life of mill girls in Lowell, Massachusetts
  5. 00
    Angel Puss by Colleen McCullough (Fliss88)
  6. 00
    The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham (Fliss88)
  7. 00
    Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (thea-block)
    thea-block: Both books have similar narratives of a young immigrant girl figuring out how to live in America in the 20th century. Both give a depth to the experience of immigrant women during the century - how they lived, how they loved, and the challenges they experienced.… (more)
  8. 00
    The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty (thea-block)
    thea-block: Similar stories of women's coming of age and the story of their lives from that point on.
  9. 00
    Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis (Micheller7)
  10. 00
    Crossing to Safety by Wallace Earle Stegner (beyondthefourthwall)
    beyondthefourthwall: Lovely, warm, character-driven stories of New England friendships and family.
  11. 00
    The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (beyondthefourthwall)
    beyondthefourthwall: Bostonian immigrants' kids work to find places for themselves. Lahiri's novel is the more bittersweet, but both are full of interesting characters and fascinating details.
  12. 00
    Cascade by Maryanne O'Hara (beyondthefourthwall)
    beyondthefourthwall: Women, love, independence, family, friends, and Jewishness in a well-developed early-20th-century Massachusetts setting.
  13. 00
    Laura Z: A Life by Laura Z. Hobson (beyondthefourthwall)
    beyondthefourthwall: The lives of progressive American Jewish women born around the turn of the century (Hobson's book is a memoir, Diamant's a novel, but I found both of them warm and deeply engaging).
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» See also 58 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 125 (next | show all)
Great book. I got to learn about Boston and culture in the early 20th century. ( )
  TraSea | Apr 29, 2024 |
I LOVED this novel AND the audiobook narrated fabulously and on point by the actress Linda Lavin.
This story was just a comfort story to me, a grandmother recalling her life story to one of her granddaughters on the occasion of her 85th birthday. It is one person's/family's story wrapped up in a historical fiction envelope. I loved learning about Addie, the grandmother born in America in 1900 to a Jewish immigrant family in Boston, and how her life as a woman was shaped in and by 20th century events. You get glimpses of this one person's particular life as Addie's remembrances, both good and bad, are shared. ( )
  deslivres5 | Jun 29, 2023 |
Didn't finish. Too boring to continue.
  stickersthatmatter | May 29, 2023 |
Read my review of Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani.

It's the same book. Ok, not really, but boy did they remind me of one another, and it's so funny that I read them so close together. Both involve an older person relating their personal story to a younger person. Both focus on a young girl in a single city (one NY, one Boston) with an ethnic/immigrant background (one Italian, one Jewish) and their trials with their family, their work, and their love life. There's a feminist slant to both. The time periods are different - - one early 20th century and the other mid 20th century - - but both are focused on how young women struggled to be independent during those periods.

Boston Girl reads very YA to me. And I don't feel like that's a plus. But others will probably find it a great easy flowing and pleasant read. The characters are nicely drawn, and I enjoyed the interplay between the protagonist and her domineering mother. It's easy to like and root for Addie.

Unfortunately, the story didn't really build for me. It was more like a series of nicely related anecdotes with the real focus being to evoke a sense of place and of the immigrant experience in Boston. I lived in Boston for a number of years so I enjoyed the references, but if the reader hasn't been there, I'm not sure you really come away with a feeling for it.

The Red Tent it ain't, but if you are looking for a nice, easy read with characters you can root for, this will fit the bill! ( )
  Anita_Pomerantz | Mar 23, 2023 |
Story of Jewish girl growing up in Boston in the early 20th century. Well written and moving, but it felt like a YA book though it wasn’t marked as one on the cover. ( )
  steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 125 (next | show all)
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Anita Diamantprimary authorall editionscalculated
Lavin, LindaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Dedication
For Robert B. Wyatt and S.J.P.
First words
Ava, sweetheart, if you ask me to talk about how I got to be the woman I am today, what do you think I am going to say?
Quotations
If you treat every question like you've never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century. Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine--a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her "How did you get to be the woman you are today." She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naive girl she was and a wicked sense of humor. Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman's complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world"--

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