Customer Reviews

My Summer with George

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

 

 

Marilyn French has captured a reality that so many women feel but would never admit. If women can't relate to Hermione, it's because they're still young with all their options intact. I personally know three woman whose names could easily be inserted into this story as Hermione. Sure, nowadays we're all liberated and free and smart and have self-respect and money and all that stuff, but the need for love and the guaranteed loneliness that sometimes haunts us, especially when the options are narrowing, are a reality. There are things that never change in the human soul. Why Hermione was attracted to George (and her subsequent flight of fancy) is one of them. These things never change regardless of our disdain or dislike for them. And Marilyn French has written about it like no other writer has dared.

It has been a great pleasure reading Ms.French's latest novel. The heroine's infatuation with George, the elusive "boyfriend" is narrated in such a fashion that one cannot help but feel all the frustrations Hermione goes through. Any woman over 40 will, I am sure, find this novel very uplifting all the same. I think it is a must read for French fans.

"My Summer with George" is an ironic title for Marilyn French's latest novel in which Hermione Beldame does not spend the summer with George other than in her mind and conversation. George does come in and out of Hermione's life in New York City, but the novel is more about romantic love and its effects on sophisticated women than it is about actual romance. Hermione herself, a successful, spirited, sixty-something romance novelist, and the women in her life are as much or more interesting than George. They thoroughly discuss the role of romance in their lives. "My Summer with George" is actually a non-romance novel that examines how one woman is surprised by her longing for romance and relationship and lives more through the fantasy than the meager reality of it.

This book is a nice casual read with a lot of room for contemplation. I like that Marilyn French can bare a personal topic so openly, and it reads more like a biography than a novel.

All of us women have had crushes, and it helps to know that it's a condition we're capable of feeling at any age. That she writes it as the subject is clever because I felt the real story was the telling of the main character's past, not the summer of George.

Marilyn French is a gifted writer, and it's a pleasure to continue to read her books. I would have loved for George to step up to the relationship, but it's just like life that it didn't happen. That's what we women share is the belief that a romance is possible and a support system whenever it doesn't. It's good to be able to read about it.

I borrowed this book from the library because I was looking for a book about someone like me, a mid-fifties woman. In so many ways I am not like her. I am not rich. I don't write romances. I don't have any friends.

But I cried at the end.

It's true. No one is ever going to love me again. This book tells me to just accept that fact. No wonder it's not a popular book. It's not a romance.

Painful reading! I was extremely disappointed with this book. It left me feeling utterly empty, rather than empowered as a fellow single woman. I was sad to see such a brilliant character reduced to mush by very superficial contact with a man. Hermoine's friends were also brilliant characters however were described in superficial, tedious detail. The main theme that women are raised with the "Cinderella complex" was beaten over the head too many times and even though acknowledged by the main character a thousand times alone and with her friends, she let herself become victim with no real explaination

Didn't buy this book for myself, it was for a friend that is a big Marilyn French fan. Book arrived in good condition. Good packaging. Told by friend this is a good read. Recommend seller.

I, too, find it hard to believe that the author of The Women's Room wrote this junk. There was never any plausible reason why the main character was even attracted to George. He was a jerk. Everytime he talked, he barked. His posture was dejected. There was nothing attractive about him in the slightest. How can you get involved in someone's love fantasies when you think it's unbelievable that she would have a second thought about this guy? The narrator's recollections of her early life were much more interesting and believable. An easy read, but annoying.

I can't believe the same author who wrote one of my favorite books, "The Women's Room", wrote this junk.

I never believed the narrator was that nuts about George...it seemed to me she was more awestruck with her lesbian friends who had forged solid relationships than she was with the fickle George.

My wonderful spouse brought this book home to me, after finding in in the bargin bin. $3.98 was too much to pay for this sloppy, unbelieveable story from such a first-rate author. Let's hope she pulls herself together for her next effort, or it, too, will end up in the "Library Fire Sale" stack at my house.

I loved the previous novels by Ms. French, but this one leaves me feeling a bit sick.

Apparently the theme of her latest is that it is unacceptable for a man to enjoy speaking to a woman, have lunch with her when he is in town, but NOT intend to have a sexual relationship with her -- though he's given no indication he wants such a relationship, and reacts negatively to all physical advances by the woman.

It's hard enough for us single-by-choice women to find friends (male or female) without books like this scaring off the few men who still think friendship is possible!