Customer Reviews

Summer Reading: A Novel

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

 

 

Like another reviewer, I picked up this book after a mention on NPR. I pushed through it, in the hope that it would improve at some point. It didn't.

The characters are flat, and the connections between them strained. The references to better literature are extraneous. The author hopes to show how these characters are affected by literature, but the connections are implausible. The most literate of the characters loves literature, but we are supposed to believe that she is picking up these classics again and again and finding new insights, and that she is working hard to prepare for a book club of spoiled rich women. I imagined a former college literature professor wouldn't be breaking a sweat to discuss Trollope with these vapid women. The main character is a shallow Hamptons trophy wife, who is alternately bored then suddenly inspired by Charlotte Bronte, Garcia Marquez and Flaubert. In between gossip, shoes, and temptation for affairs, she is stopping to find her life in Madame Bovary?! My favorite character was Michelle, who works as a maid, but she also is implausibly affected by literature. She's working her brains off in someone else's house, has family commitments and a busy life, but she's suddenly not only reading The Autobiography of Frida Kahlo, but drawing comparisons to her own life and spending time contemplating the lives of Mexican artists?

If the gimmick of Great Literature doesn't work, all that is left is the story. The stories of these three women are mildly interesting, worthy of maybe a page apiece. I could find a note of interest in the irredeemable regret of the older woman, and as the young maid found some backbone. The main character, Lissy, really had nothing to offer. She was a shallow character who remained shallow and unsympathetic throughout the book.

It's summertime in the Hamptons. Four rich, young, newly married women decide to engage a retired English professor to run a summer book club for them,and thus improve themsevles with Madame Bovary, Villette and other novels. This novel centers on three characters Lissy, rich and young who hosts the club's meetings at her gorgeous home; Michelle, surly, poor and young who is a'townie' and works for Lissy as a maid; and Angela Graves the retired professor.

The three other members of the club make minor appearances. Ardith who rarely shows is 'felt' in the novel as she is a social leader of these young rich matrons and is having an affair with a mafia conncected restraunteur in the area. This sets off daydreams and longing in the others.

Sounds rather banal doesnt it? Well it is. Angela advises her hapless students who can barely muster up the energy or interest to read the assigned novels, that literature helps one understand how to live life. Unfortunately it barely seems to have that effect on anyone in the novel. Not much discussion is given to the novels assigned, Ms. Wolitzer treats her readers as if they are as shallow as those in the book club.

This novel has the hallmarks of the vacuous women's lit genre that is out there today - restlessness, affairs, gossip, bisexuality and problems with step children. The author's writing is sophomoric, a man's day growth of stubble is described as looking like 'it had been breaded'. Another time it is described like 'a bandit's mask". Not terribly original.

Cross this off your summer reading list and read Madame Bovary instead.

i've really enjoyed Wolitzer's other books so i was looking forward to this read. Unfortunately no characters had any depth and the plot was predictable.

I really wanted to like this book. It's set in the Hamptons in the summer with 3 main characters. The characters don't really relate to one and other and the story line goes from bad to awful at the end. I made myself finish it but kept wanting to put it down. I'd pass on this one!

Summer Reading is perfect summer reading. Yes, there are implausible coincidences, but it's all in keeping with a warm, funny symphony of women, each stumbling in her own way, toward a purposeful life. As is often the case with Wolitzer, each paragraph has something delicious in it. I was so glad NOT to be reading something by someone edgy and callow.

I'm astonished at some of the negative reviews of this beautiful book. I could not put it down, and I found the characterizations much more in-depth and intricate than some reviewers have stated.

I'm wondering if the fact that there is lesbian content put some people off? If so, that's a shame because the book is a unique story of seemingly ordinary people who are not ordinary at all. Lissy, the beautiful young trophy wife, has had a hearbreaking childhood, losing the one person she truly loved, her nanny Eva, and carrying around her childhood guilt in her heart. She is dyslexic and feels stupid but she gamely tries hosting a book club--first to win the admiration of the town "superstar," wealthy Ardith, but also in her heart of hearts to try to improve herself. She is a lost soul with all the outward trappings of wealth and none of the happiness she wants.

Michelle, who works in Lissy's kitchen, is a complicated character, defiantly blue collar and a hopeless marshmallow within. She loves her two labradors (finely drawn and wonderful for dog lovers like me) and her boyfriend--who may or may not love her back. She envies Lissy but wouldn't want to live her life, although she is not at all sure what kind of life she WOULD want to live.

Angela is the most finely drawn character. Elderly and alone, she is the leader of the book group; an English professor with a long history of leading such groups. Lissy and the others see her as an uptight old prune, but Angela has had quite a life, almost in proportion to the novels she so cherishes. Her story is both tragic and uplifting, and she is a fascinating character.

I highly recommend this book; it is complex and different, but well worth reading.

"Summer Reading" by Hilma Wolitzer delivers exactly that, and it does so perfectly! It is a delightful, intelligent, first-class reading experience. You don't often find a book that is at once, light, fun, and literary. But isn't that just what good summer reading should be? This book has just enough suspense and mystery to keep the reader wanting to find out what comes next. It never stops entertaining. There are literary tidbits, humor, and bookish insights throughout. Overall, the effect is to make you feel good about books, about life, and about yourself.

"Summer Reading" is set in the present and weaves interlocking tales about three very different women during one summer in the Hamptons on Long Island. Each is brought together by a summer reading group--actually, more of a social club for summering New York high-society women. The group is hosted by a genuinely sweet, naïve, and totally clueless young trophy wife named Lissy. Poor Lissy happens to be dyslexic, adding spice and humor to the text. In an effort to make her new book club more legitimate, she hires Angela, a retired English professor as the book club leader. Angela is a woman who lives in her mind and through her books. She takes her job very seriously. She is confident that "literature teaches us how to live." She is eager to help the club members develop better insight into their lives through literature; however, she is not distracted when members take her literary insights as conversational springboards toward juicy local Hamptons' gossip. Michelle, Lissy's maid, accomplished all the work behind the scenes, work that transforms each club event into a smashing social success. She is disdainful of these women and hardly pays attention to them, but she can't help but observe and listen in on all the bookish happenings. Not surprisingly, over the course of the summer, it is Michelle who manages to learn the most from the book club experience.

Wolitzer knows her literature, but don't expect bookish prose--this is effortless, clean, strong writing by a truly gifted writer. The characters and dialog are completely believable. The story moves along artfully, never getting tied down in unnecessary detail. And the books? Well, they turn up everywhere in the story, but it is not necessary to have read any of them to appreciate this tale. For the record, the reading list includes "Villette" by Bronte, "Mrs. Bridge" by Connell, "Madame Bovary" by Flaubert, "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Garcia Marquez, and "Can You Forgive Her?" by Trollope. Herrera's "Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo" and Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" also make brief appearances but are not on the official club's reading list.

I am left with an overpowering desire to buy copies of this book as gifts for all the book-loving women in my life--serendipitously, I want to share the joy. My guess is that there are very few women--young, old, bookish, adventureous--that would not love to read this book. I recommend it highly.

What a wonderful book--so funny, smart, engaging, and fun, fun, fun throughout that the profound ending sneaks up on you. Somebody tell Wolitzer to write Autumn Reading.

This was a really good book from start to finish. It kept me wondering what would happen to each individual person. When I read the last page I actually said out loud, "no, I need more!" I wish there was a sequel to the book! Very good read.

At times this book was OK, but overall I found the connection between the characters to be rather weak, and none of the characters particularly interesting. Most of them could have been more intriguing had the author given us more, but it was as if the surface was scratched, and then that was it. Too much focus on unnecessary details and a few minor characters who don't really matter, and not enough depth of the main characters. Everything seemed sort of frivolous and underdeveloped. What could have been some interesting relationships are left pretty flat.

Couldn't recommend this one.