Customer Reviews

I'm Not Julia Roberts

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

 

 

As a member of a blended family myself, I was rolling with laughter over Laura Ruby's descriptions of the hopelessly dysfunctional kin in "I'm Not Julia Roberts." The role of the step-parent is first and foremost on her mind, but the bewildered state of the divorced biological parent also gets a moment on the stage. Even the evil ex-wife with control issues gets her chance to express her view of the whole extended-family disaster.

The writing may be a bit savage at times, and some readers may quail at the descriptions of the hopelessly lost children. But the truth is that kids are not always adaptable to change and their behavior can be alienating at best. Most do come around, however, and there is a hint in this book that change is possible.

My only beef is the family tree at the beginning of the book. I found myself hopelessly lost as to the inter-relationships of the characters and found that the tree wasn't helping very much. I'm not sure what sort of device would work better, however.

All in all, a witty and biting look at the state of families today. It's a must for anyone who's been divorced, remarried, and dealing with children.

This is not our mother's novel, and in spite of the aproned figure on the cover, this is not the story of June Cleaver, either. I'm Not Julia Roberts is a collection of interwoven stories chronicling the blended family.

The title alludes to Julia Roberts' character in the movie Stepmom. She is the unseen foil to Lu Klein, one of the stepmothers in this collection. Lu, along with her husband's ex-wife Beatrix, and Beatrix's husband's ex-wife, Roxie, are just a few of the women we meet in this oddly interconnected world.

If not for the "family tree" diagram in the front of the book, I might have gotten hopelessly lost! It was immensely helpful, not only for the marriages current and broken, but also for the children's names and their interconnections.

Laura Ruby's writing style is descriptive, yet straightforward. She tells the story in a circular rather than linear fashion--and in the case of one chapter, through emails and notes, entirely backwards. Occasionally her imagery is so poignant, so true, it made me stop reading and ponder.

One of the strengths of the book is that each story has a different point of view. By the end of the book, we've seen not only the main characters' own points of view, we've also seen these characters' views of each other. This adds a touch of reality because we get to see everyone's side of the story--wives, husbands, and children.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to those who are from intact families, because it gives the reader a glimpse into the world of blended families and the balancing acts therein. I also recommend this book to those in blended families, for they will understand even more of the nuances and subtexts, and perhaps even smile in recognition.

Armchair Interviews says: Unique view of blended families.

I really can't write up a summary of "I'm Not Julia Roberts." Why? Because this book failed to have any kind of plot line.

Ok. I get that this book was supposed to be sarcastic. I get that the humor was supposed to have a dry sort of character to it. It's definitely not supposed to be the "laugh out loud feel good book of the year." However, instead of a humorous take on what being a step-parent/second wife can be, all I got was a mass of convoluted (and unrealistic) semi-related characters who all whined, complained, and moaned either about their exes, their exes new spouses, or their step children.

That was the entire story. Lu complains about Beatrix, Beatrix complains about Ward, Ward complains about Beatrix, Alan complains about Ward, and a whole mass of other less important characters who made brief appearances to farther complicate the mix of these two couples. Add in about 6 or 7 random kids and you have a huge crockpot meal that someone shoved all the contents of their veggie drawer into, left the mass on the counter for 10 hours, yet forgot to hit cook.

Basically at the end of the book I was left with the same remnants of that crockpot meal: a mess of goo.

Wish I could have given it zero stars. In fact, the only reason I did NOT put this book down was because it was the only book I had for an 8 hour day of test proctoring.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this book but at times it became difficult to keep track of who was who! All of the husbands, exes, and kids started to just kind of meld together! The story was an interesting look into divorce, the world of step families and the effects on the children. I very much enjoyed the character of Lupe and found her to be funny and realistic. Not my favorite book in the world but entertaining none the less.

Lupe Klein is not Julia Roberts. She may look like Julia Roberts. She may have the same sense of humor as Julia Roberts. And she may find herself in the same situations as Julia Roberts. But she is not Julia Roberts. She is especially not the Julia Roberts who portrayed the astonishing stepmom in the movie of the same name. You remember, the one in which the real mom is dying of cancer and lovely Julia is waiting in the wings to mother her children and comfort her husband.

In this case, lovely Lupe is already married to Ward; his ex-wife Beatrix does not have cancer but is the victim of terminal control-freakitis. And his three sons have become the pawns in this all-too-typical blended family scenario.

While it's true that Loopy (the boys' nickname for her) could have benefited from a snappy scriptwriter, she does an admirable job of being stepmom to Ward's trying trio. Devin, Britt and Ollie are basically good kids, pushing the parental boundaries but willing to give her a fair chance if she doesn't crack under the strain. She does well considering that she never has had any children of her own to practice on.

I'M NOT JULIA ROBERTS is not so much a novel as it is a series of episodes from "Knot's Landing" --- four or five yuppie couples live on a cul-de-sac, creating endless drama and striving to get their needs met regardless of who or what must be sacrificed. It is a distressing but accurate commentary on life in a culture where the divorce rate is over 50%. As a result, children in blended families are cast in roles they were never meant to play: monsters, matchmakers, gossip mongers. They also become understudies to the adults, and when they come of age, many are destined to continue the marriage, divorce and remarriage cycle.

If there is a lighter side to all of this, Laura Ruby has managed to find it and captures the essence of each gender and age group in a way that makes you smile knowingly or laugh out loud, depending on how long ago it was that you dealt with these problems. For example, Roxie is another of the "not Julia Roberts" moms and her daughter, Liv, enjoys making her life miserable. "....Liv discovered that devouring truck-loads of junk food in front of Roxie...she of the perpetual diet...was a far more effective and enjoyable brand of torture, especially since she could burn it all off with one good hissy fit."

Generously sprinkled with candid observations and comic relief, Laura Ruby has created a book with a serious theme and presented it in a way that is sure to comfort already-blended families and provide food for thought for those who have not yet taken that important step.

[...]

I was hooked on "I'm Not Julia Roberts" the minute I read the jacket cover: "...the bio mom gets cancer and DIES in that idiotic movie ('Stepmom'). Who here is going to get that lucky?" Did she really write that? I want more!

And Laura Ruby delivers. Her characters are funny, sarcastic, bitchy and touching, each flawed and totally human. I couldn't get enough of the new stepmother Lu Klein, seemingly in over her head, who speaks with humor , honesty and wit. Beatrix, the bio-mom, whom we should hate out of loyalty to our new best friend Lu, gets a fair shake with her own story of trying to cope the best that she can. Laura Ruby's clever, unique and honest writing made me think, made me feel and best of all, made me laugh out loud.

The children and teenagers in Ruby's book speak with voices we've all overheard in malls, complaining, in fast food kiosks, complaining, and at school functions, complaining. They are the voices of other people's children, sometimes the voices of our own, and they are so real we are shocked that someone, Laura Ruby, has finally heard them and recorded them in her book. Because we've never read dialog like Ruby's before. Children in books are too often furniture in the backdrop, unlikely little mutated monsters of the author's imagination, bearing no resemblance to those very real children we deal with every day.

To read Ruby's dialog and to enjoy her amusing prose are the reasons to enjoy her. Her book is more of a collection of short stories loosely bound together than a novel. Each of her characters is so complete and idiosyncratic that you regret when Ruby hip-hops to another. Read each chapter as if you are reading one short story, and your enjoyment will increase. Ruby is bitingly funny as she deals with the confusing disaster of divorce and remarriage, and how it affects children as well as parents over years of coping and ugly compromise. The book does have a sort of a happy ending. The children grow up.

I bought the book because I liked the title and the cover art. I probably should have read the plot description inside the front cover because I'm not really in the target audience for this book.

It's a darkly humorous book about life in a "blended" family and all the drama and chaos that can come with it. The book contains several stories about couples that are so intertwined there is a family tree at the beginning. I had to refer to it several times to keep the players straight. Rather than being just one narrative novel, the book is set up to tell the stories of several different people who are biological parents or stepparents and sometimes both. The primary narrator is Lu, who married a divorced man with 3 boys and joint custody.

As others have noted, the title refers to the movie "Stepmom" where Julia Roberts's character marries a divorced man with children but she doesn't have to deal with the ex-wife very long because she gets cancer and dies. Lu compares her life to that movie and notes that real life as a stepmother isn't like the movie.

This book is probably best enjoyed by women who are part of blended families. As a single person, it was probably more troubling than humorous.

Too many characters in this book - so much so that the author had to put not only a 'family tree' at the front of it but also a 'cast of characters'. It was a good job she did too as I found myself referring to it more often thatn I would have liked. Perhaps that was the point. How complicated divorce and remarriage is but I would have like to know more about less people.
Too confusing and crowded. Leave it.

As several previous reviewers have done a masterful job of it, I will not attempt to summarize "I'm Not Julia Roberts". Rather, I will just say what I told the author in an email to her after I finished the book (in just a little more than 24 hours). I loved it. It was a deeply satisfying read in all the ways that I consider a book satisfying. I love Ruby's writing style and voice. It's a well-crafted, brilliantly told and highly engaging story - not an easy accomplishment given the complicated ties among all the families. Her insight into the complexities of relationships across multiple age-groups and genders rings true. She nails them all with great accuracy, humor and compassion. Wonderful book!