The Lauras

"It's bothered me for as long as I can remember, the way the human compulsion to classify stands at odds with my feeling of falling outside the available categories. When I was a child at home it mattered less: my father was Man, my mother was Woman, I was myself. But when I went out into the world, or even to my grandparents' house, everyone seemed determined to put me into a box that I had no business being in, expected to think and act and want in ways that were consistent with a label with which I could not identify."

This adventure starts when gender-nonspecific 13-year-old Alex is awakened by her/his mom, trundled into the car, and told that they are leaving. As the miles roll along, mom tells stories of growing up, moving from show more foster home to foster home, making her way pretty much on her own. Thus enter the Lauras, a series of girls and women who meant much to mom as she made her way to adulthood. This road trip takes Alex and Alex's mom to various places of interest in mom's youth: through the south to Florida, then to Texas, Las Vegas, eventually to California and British Columbia. Along the way, Alex goes through the teenage coming of age, learning from mom's stories and discovering her/his own yearnings. One of the most compelling stories within this story is that of Annie, the daughter of an old friend whom they visit in Texas.

Taylor's exploration of categories, societal expectations and the internal experience of falling outside those, is rich and respectful. They are also subtly applied, leaving the reader to consider questions of gender, gender roles, and the notion of family at the reader's own pace.

This novel started slowly and it took a while for Alex and her/his mom to develop for me. However, it gained momentum around the halfway point and flourished into a satisfying read. It never quite lived up to the promise of Sara Taylor's debut novel, The Shore, but it's a solid contribution and I will continue to look forward to Taylor's future works.

I received an uncorrected proof copy for review from LibrayThing's Early Reviewer program. show less

Sara Taylor’s novel, The Shore, captivated and confused me. Her most recent novel, The Lauras, has left me feeling the same. A mother, known as “Ma,” leaves her husband and home with 13-year-old Alex in tow. What follows is a two-year odyssey of visits to places on a road map of Ma’s former life where she comes to terms with or makes good on promises made years ago. While Alex’s mother may have a plan in mind that would explain their various stops in towns across the country, sometimes by the side of the road for a night or two, sometimes in a seedy motel for almost the length of a school year, she seldom clues Alex into this plan. Answers to questions are often met with “I’ll tell you later.” At times Alex is often show more willing to put up with much more than this reader. Where Ma deserves parental kudos is her support of Alex’s indifference to identify with a particular gender. For this I can forgive all of the other times she appeared to put her own needs above her child’s.

And who are the Lauras? They are girls Ma met over the years that made an imprint on her life. They’ve become place marks on the road map she carries on their cross-country journey. Surprisingly, not all of these girls were named Laura. As Ma explains to Alex, “…it just so happens that when I was born everyone was naming their daughter ‘Laura.’…When you’re eight or nine, say, and you make your first best friend, they’re the greatest person in the world and you know that you’ll be friends forever. But one day one of you moves away and they leave a vacancy. And then you meet someone with the same name, and because you’re eight part of you thinks not exactly that they’re the same person, but they were made from the same block of clay, maybe.” She goes on to say that when you’re forty, you look back and see that you have a whole string of “Lauras” behind you that the eight-year-old in you was using “to fill in the hole that the first Laura made.”

The Lauras has some lovely language and the characters, particularly Alex’s, are unique and well drawn. The conversations between Ma and Alex are distinctive and weirdly refreshing. I simply wondered at times whose story I was reading. It’s almost as though there’s a Part I and a Part II, the first belonging to Ma and the second to Alex. Either way it’s quite the road trip. show less

In the middle of a spring night, 13-year-old Alex's mother hustles both of them into the car, puts Alex in the back seat with a blanket, and drives away from their home and Alex's father, with no explanation. All Alex knew was Ma and Dad had been fighting, again, and this time must have been the worst, or Ma would never have left.

The pair spends the next few years on the road, traveling from place to place, small town to small town, more or less in hiding, while Alex's mother works odd jobs to support them. Now and then Ma talks about her past; now and then they visit places and people Ma had known as she was growing up in foster care. Ma has loose ends to tie up.

Alex has loose ends, too. Mainly, Alex hasn't decided whether to present show more as male or female, and so alternates depending on mood and available clothing. While this usually doesn't cause trouble, Alex occasionally runs into people who don't understand and want to classify and categorize by gender. Ma is fiercely protective of Alex's genderqueer identity and won't stand for any nonsense from jackasses.

Told in the first person from Alex's perspective, this wandering road trip of self-discovery -- for both Alex and Ma -- is mesmerizing, beautiful, tender, gruff, and heart-wrenching. Life on the run isn't easy, but our stalwart nomads make the best of their circumstances, and eventually find themselves a satisfactory state of being.

Thank you to LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program for the opportunity to read this book. show less

I’ll be honest, I applied for this NetGalley early review copy because my name is Laura and I thought it would be funny to get a book called “The Lauras.” Sometimes I have a really goofy definition of self. I definitely did not factor in that I would enjoy this book so much. Like woah, I would even go so far as to say it’s one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, out of the 16 I’ve read so far. This is the third advanced reader copy I’ve received and the only one I’ve even rated above 3 stars, so this review is definitely not biased. I am honestly now interested in reading Taylor’s debut copy, because I enjoyed it so much.

This book is through Alex’s perspective, as s/he travels with their mother across the show more United States on a road trip of self-discovery and personal significance. In the beginning, I think Alex is around 13, and by the end they are maybe 16? It’s a first person narrative, showing you Alex’s ruminations on their traveling experiences and growing up. Alex gets to know their parent like few kids do, some good, and some bad. The story really resonated with me in the sense that I have a wandering spirit that I’ve never really fully realized. I get restless when I’m in a place for too long, but instead of taking epic trips of self-discovery, I take a weekend vacation to somewhere new. I have a job that keeps its claws firmly lodged in me, and the best I can do is vacationing here and there, and reading as much as I possibly can to escape.

I’m not one of those people who despises first person narratives, so it didn’t really bother me. But I did enjoy reading through Alex’s voice because they were so insightful and curious. Granted, the voice is pretty much the same from adolescence to young adulthood, but it’s a highly readable voice that experiences sexual curiosity, petulance of youth, and eventually a more concrete understanding of self and their parents.

THE VERDICT:
If I had to sum up the plot of this book, I would say that it’s largely a book of discovery: of self, of who your parent really is and was, and, ultimately, of the world around you. It was beautiful, and I found myself sitting in bed for hours at a time to read it. I would say that those who would enjoy this book are people with a wandering spirit, as well as those who are into a book of teenage self-discovery through the eyes of an atypical individual. It’s more of a journey than one with a true typical plotline full of excitement and heroics; you are privy to Alex’s ruminations and remembering of this time. show less

The Lauras by Sara Taylor is about home and homelessness. The story takes place over two years when a mother and daughter drive up and down and across the USA (and eventually to Canada), visiting the mother's past. The past comes in the shape of stories of immigration, orphanage, running away, foster care, friendships and animosities, and eventually link to the present in the shape of long lost promises waiting to be fulfilled, obligations, favors, and the search for two people in particular.

The Lauras is also a coming of age story. The gender-ambivalent Alex discovers the sexual urges and fantasies of teenage-hood, learns to break free and disobey in more significant ways, makes mistakes and pays for them, and eventually comes to show more understand "Ma" better than before. Through their search for the past, through their restless homelessness, Alex forges an understanding of what home means for each person, and how radically different each person's definition can be.

Recommended for those who like greasy diner food, gender-bending teenagers, swimming, and long showers.

Thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange of my honest review. I enjoyed The Lauras! show less

I did not hate this novel. Taylor can certainly write an engaging story and interesting characters as originally evidenced in her debut, [The Shore] (which I loved). But there is something very oblique about this book, a purposeful distance the author keeps between the reader and her characters. We never really get to know them, and while I recognize her message about how we never really do or can know anyone, her method of driving it home prevented me from ever warming up to the novel. The writing was compelling but the story itself never completely caught me up and ultimately left me cold.

3.5 stars

(Read for Early Reviewers)

As Mom goes off to revisit key incidents in her own life, the teen aged protagonist in this book comes of age in the most sordid possible way. In a world peopled with the broken and damaged human dregs, young Alex follows her mother's unpredictable odyssey and attempts to sort out her own sad life. While the author conceals Alex's gender throughout the novel, her voice, to me, sounds unmistakably like an angsty teen aged girl.Taylor's writing is superb and she uses tiny details to speak volumes about her characters. I could not enjoy this book but that's probably simply a reflection of my own tastes; I have no inclination toward the underbelly of society where these characters live and little sympathy with a mother who would drag her show more teenager on such a quest. The author undeniably knows how to use her tools, however so, while I didn't particularly enjoy the book, I must, in good conscience, give it a high rating. show less