Customer Reviews

Saturns Return to New York

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

 

 

I read SATURN'S RETURN TO NEW YORK in one sitting and all I can say is, "Wow. What an amazing read."

Mary Forrest is witty, difficult, scathing, but a sympathetic character. When a close friend performs an astrological reading , Mary doesn't expect it to be the harbinger for the upheaval that would soon be her life. She is told that the planet Saturn will return to the same place it was the day of her birth when she reaches the age of twenty-nine and a half and that this is the time to resolve all unresolved issues and the time to tie up all loose ends, or else have to wait another 29 years to resolve them.

True to the astrologer's words, Mary's world is soon turned upside-down. She is beleagured by a bad tooth, and embarks on a mission to Save the Tooth-which she likens to a Jerry Lewis telethon; an ailing mother, a famous literary immenence in her own right, whom she speaks with exactly once a month; an inherent fear of abandonment, spurred by her father's suicide at the age of seven; and a fellow employee who is looking to steal her job, at an Amazon.com type of outfit where she reviews books. Due to her childhood experiences, Mary has an intrinsic inability to cultivate any form of personal attachment and breaks up with her boyfriend (whom she truly loves and who loves her in return) over some psychotically imagined slight.

Mary is faced with the difficulty of living in the the dog-eat-dog literary world of New York and the daunting task of emotionally exposing herself to the people she cares about.

This is a humorous, touching, poignant portrayal of a New York heroine fulfiling her destiny. Sara Gran is a brilliant new writer with an amazing future ahead of her.

This was a good book on dealing with your parents getting older and dependent and the inevitability of care taking, to some extent. It chronicled the subject's feelings very well in dealing with these issues. Not as good as I expected, but still a good book and worth reading, especially if you are experiencing or have experienced this subject.

This novel was quick and easy to read. It really is the story of a woman's relationships based on the life of her mother, Evelyn, a successful and popular publisher of a book review which is prominent in New York City. I was to the middle of the novel when I stopped to ask when the stories about the main character, Mary Forrest were going to start. They were nuanced in there but not really the focus of the novel. The best thing about the novel is the voice of Evelyn, Mary's mom. You can really hear what she could be in real life through the author's dialogue. You get a good sense of her New York/Greenich Village lifestyle, too. Not my favorite, but a tidy nugget of a book.

I loved this book when it was first published in 2001 because it gave me something to cry about that wasn't related to 9/11 and the fact that I had to work down there every day and pretend to care about my stupid corporate job. I reread it yesterday because I'm culling the herd, so speak, thinning out my book collection and attempting to become more Zen about my possessions. My close friends get to stay on the shelf...Jane Austen, Jack Kerouac, Anne Lamott, Russell Banks and now, Sara Gran.

I'll read anything, but I'll rarely love a book, hold it to my heart, wipe my nose on my sleeve. I love this book. I love that Sara Gran said in fiction what none of us who lived in NYC said out loud, you can't get a good haircut in NYC. Thank you, Sara, for this wonderful book with real characters you wish were your friends because their lives are just as messy and uncomfortable as everyone else's.

This is a smarter book than I had anticipated. The heroine is smarter, her friends are smarter, even her put-downs are smarter. It is also a love story, of a daughter for her mother. An appreciation of the influence parents and background had for her. And how she has adapted them into her life. It's a shame that this book may be swept under the rug and ignored in favor of other books that receive more publicity. A real sleeper.

...sharing what she knows. Sara Gran does us all the huge favor of neither overreaching for a grand universal plot nor underestimating the validity of what she clearly knows from her own experience and imagination. She's unapologetic as a young woman from the big city writing about growing up, about family, about change and adaptation and cycles-- and breaking those cycles. Her narrator is brave, independent to a fault, and refreshingly aware of the limitations of her own knowledge and experience.
This is a really solid first novel and does not have that awful cutesy show-offy self-consciously "quirky" quality that books about cool young women too often do. Gran is a much more level-headed writer than that. I'm looking forward to her future work.

Sara Gran's Saturn's Return to New York is a witty and clever novel, a light, yet still somehow substantial read of a young woman in New York, turning twenty nine, trying to figure out various aspects of her life. There are a lot of books out there like that, I know, but this one distinguishes itself from the pack. Sara Gran is a fine writer and her novel holds together very well. Mary, the protagonist is a likeable heroine dealing with real issues--such as her slightly troubled relationship with her mother, and her mother's failing health. It is this relationship that is the focus of the novel and not the whole boyfriend thing that dominates so many other young single woman novels. The novel is witty and well told. Everything, plot, character, dialogue, is natural and unforced. I really enjoyed this one.

I loved this novel! I "gobbled it up" in a day, thoroughly engrossed in Mary's life. The humor is subtle, the intense emotions ring true, and it's an easy and satisfying read. I enjoyed spending time with this contempoary heroine who's honest, realistic, a bit of a smartass, and quite likeable!