Customer Reviews

Commuters: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm reading this as a bookclub selection and find myself engrossed with the characters's lives. I'll suddenly look up because I've forgetten where I am! I sometimes flip ahead a few pages wanting to know what's going to happen next. This book is written in an easy-to-read style that alternates between characters and their perspectives. Tedrowe adeptly puts herself in the mind of a young-20s wanna-be chef Avery, middle-aged, mid-life-crisis Rachel, and elderly center-of-the-family-drama Winnie. I especially like the relationship between Avery and Winnie: it's endearing without being sappy. This is a fabulous debut novel and I look forward to reading another of her books!

I was lucky enough to get an early copy of this beautiful novel and read it over the weekend. Absolutely knocked me out! I haven't loved a book this much in ages and have already ordered copies for my mother and best friend. The writing is gorgeous, the characters and story are unforgettable. COMMUTERS is an insightful, elegant, modern take on love, money, and family. Perfection.

I really enjoyed this book when I read an early release. I think that its themes of family, marriage, divorce, and growing older will resonate with readers of all ages but that its especially suited for a book club discussion. I'm definitely looking forward to a second book from this first time novelist! More Please!!

In Commuters, Emily Gray Tedrowe explores a topic rarely discussed, that of love found by the elderly and the complications a late second marriage entails.

Winnie McClelland is seventy-eight on her wedding day; Jerry Travis a few years older. Winnie has lived in the same commuter town outside New York City her entire life; Jerry is a successful businessman who is very wealthy. Neither expected to be lucky enough to find love again at their age. Nor did they expect the complications and joys that would arise from their union.

As in all second marriages, the children of the first marriage have a major adjustment to make. Winnie's daughter, Rachel, also lives in town. Rachel's family has had major life adjustments after her husband is in a horrific accident that leaves him in a coma for several weeks and needing major rehabilitation afterwards. Now she has to adjust to her diminished role as her mother's confidant and advisor. Jerry's daughter, Annette, is adamantly against the marriage and regards Winnie as a gold digger, only after Jerry's money. She ups the ante by suing her father for control of the business he has built and left in her charge.

Annette's son, Avery, has had little contact with his grandfather. But he is now on his own in New York, and develops a relationship with both Jerry and Winnie. He is starting out in many ways. He has just found a new love, Nona, and is feeling his way towards a career as a chef. For the first time in his life, he is feeling the comfort and reassurance of an accepting family life.

All the characters react in different fashions as Jerry's health deteriorates, and these reactions make up the second half of the book. Emily Tedrowe explores what it means to get older and what is important to us as we age. She delves into family relationships and the difficulties that they bring along with the joy.

This book is recommended for all readers. The characters are vibrant, and the reader will remember them long after the book is put away. The topic is one that many readers will encounter, either as the participant in an older love relationship, or as the child of someone in the situation. Commuters gives guidance and hope; an uplifting book that lyrically explores the facets of love and family.

My rating system: 5 stars = all time favorite; 4 stars = excellent, highly recommended; 3 stars = solid, enjoyable; 2 stars = disliked more than I liked; 1 stars = poor, would not recommend

I can already tell COMMUTERS is one of those books that will stick with me for a while, quietly, unobtrusively, somewhere in the back of my mind. After finishing the last page, I felt a quiet ache in my throat that still resurfaces whenever I go back and think about these characters and this story.

I like to describe COMMUTERS as the portrait of a family at a major turning point. The matriarch of one family, the inimitable Winnie, marries the patriarch of another, the equally inimitable -- or so we think -- Jerry. This joins two families into one and turns everyone's lives upside down. The book begins with this event, and then proceeds through the heartbreaking aftermath through the alternating perspectives of three characters -- Winnie herself, Winnie's harried daughter, Rachel, and Jerry's troubled grandson, Avery.

The alternating viewpoints were fantastic, and each had a distinct feel without jarring the reader -- Winnie's organized, quiet determination; Rachel's exhaustion, grief, and frustration; and Avery's tempestuous passion, swinging between the extreme highs and lows appropriate for a young twenty-something male. At the beginning of each new chapter, I would be sad to leave Winnie but excited to get back to Rachel, and so on. That is quite an achievement in itself.

I don't want to say too much more about the plot, because the places Tedrowe takes this family are often surprising and always heart-wrenching, but I will say that the writing is lovely. Lyrical, clear, and slightly different for each of the three narrators, it makes COMMUTERS an easy read, without being an easy book. There is a distinctly autumnal feel to the writing and the setting (and the cover), which makes this a great book to curl up with on a cool fall night (as I did just last week).

Ultimately, I give COMMUTERS a solid 4 stars, and I highly recommend it.

This book did not live up to my expectations. After reading the reviews online I expected a lot more. I found it disjointed (at one point I was sure I had somehow skipped ahead on my kindle and went back to try to figure out what I had missed - nothing missed, just badly written) and unbelievable. The timeline makes no sense - way too much happens in a short period of time. Because the book is so rushed I found that I could not buy into any of the characters. I wouldn't recommend this book.

Commuters is a delightfully literate novel that made me both laugh out loud and cry. It's told in the alternating voices of three main characters, each so convincing that you identify with all three. An added bonus are wonderful scenes for foodies. The characters stayed with me long after I finished the book. I bought copies for myself and for both my sisters. I can't wait for Emily Tedrowe's next novel. This book would be great for book groups.... so much to discuss.

Commuters is the story of two families that are joined by the marriage of two of their oldest members. It is told through the perspective of Winnie, the elderly woman who marries her beau Jerry, her daughter Rachel, and Jerry's twentysomething grandson Avery. The story is a poignant, sparklingly written exploration of love at old age, love at young age, love on hard times, and interfamily strife. Sprinkled throughout are vivid descriptions of New York bedroom community Hartfield and the foodie world of New York City. I heartily recommend this first effort from new author Emily Gray Tedrowe and eagerly look forward to her next work.

Septuagenarians Winnie McClelland and Jerry Trevis fall in love. Their respective families are not happy with this development, but his goes viral when he leaves his affluent Chicago home to move in with his love in Hartfield in Upstate New York.

His daughter Annette fears Winnie and her crew will inherit her father's fortune so she sues to take control of his vast assets. Her daughter Rachel pleads with her new wealthy stepfather to pay off the enormous loan she took out to cover her ailing spouse's health-care costs that threaten to bankrupt them. His grandson Chef Avery, a recovering drug addict, asks his grandfather to fund a new restaurant he wants to open. Meanwhile in their grandiose mansion, the newlyweds anger the townsfolk when Winnie considers removing a historical tree to make way for a swimming pool; money will not buy temporary loyalty this time.

This is excellent family drama as the younger generations see the geriatric pair as money and not a human couple. Ironically, Winnie and Jerry add to that belief by their approach to the locals in which money has always bought Trevis loyalty. The various members of the McClelland and Trevis families rotate narration so that the audience understands what each perceives are threats when the elderly duet marry; changing what has been the status quo dynamics for quite awhile. Except for the sex scenes between the newlyweds that fail to flow freely but instead come across as a forced attempt to make a point, readers will enjoy the discerning Commuters.

Harriet Klausner

Sometimes the mind of a 78-year old person (Winnie in this novel, who is about to remarry) can be more youthful and insightful than anyone in the entire family! A great first novel for Emily Tedrowe, who blends Winnie's family...ex-wives, children, grandchildren and their lifestyles with "change of plan" decisions and a lot of loyalty. As with Winnie, you'll find yourself "pulling" for all of them! After you close this book, you'll remember them and that makes a good writer!!