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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoyed this book a lot - for many of the reasons it was given bad reviews, in fact! The main character is flawed, but I found her character study thorough and detailed. The author obviously put a lot of thought into this character, because she felt so alive to me. It's long, yes, with a lot of storylines of times in her life. For some, this is why the story felt slow or dragged on, but for me, it was how I really got to know the main character. I deeply related to the main character, and also saw a lot of my mother in it as well, and the overlap of relating and recognizing gave me empathy for my mother who is passed. The themes of motherhood, womanhood, childhood trauma, friendship, and desire wove together perfectly.
Was this book designed in a lab for me specifically?? Because it was everything I could have wanted. I just spent the last several minutes crying over it. It’s what I wanted FATES AND FURIES to be. I’ve heard people say it’s too long and nothing happens, and apparently that is my jam because I couldn’t stop devouring this book.
Distilled into one line, SAME AS IT EVER WAS is about a woman with a complicated relationship with her mother, and how that informs all of her future relationships. While I don’t relate to the emotionally abusive mother aspect, the way Julia’s unique struggles inform her relationships and the work she has to do to untangle them over decades is something I think everybody has to wrestle with at some point. We all have different instigating factors, but the end result is the same—we have to figure out how to keep from hurting others due to our hurts, and it’s going to take a lot of failure and forgiveness to get there.
Some aspects I loved in particular—Lombardo’s writing is stunning without becoming overwrought. I mean: “his arrival was a bang, a bird against glass.” And her depiction of early motherhood. When I was a new mom, I thought nobody wrote about early motherhood—the struggles and the love paired together in such a confusing way. I think I was just not drawn to those books until I could relate to them, but now I’m always grateful to find stories that relate to my complicated experience.
Anyway, a lot of you will probably think this is boring, if online reviews can be believed, but this is my favorite book I’ve read this year.
Distilled into one line, SAME AS IT EVER WAS is about a woman with a complicated relationship with her mother, and how that informs all of her future relationships. While I don’t relate to the emotionally abusive mother aspect, the way Julia’s unique struggles inform her relationships and the work she has to do to untangle them over decades is something I think everybody has to wrestle with at some point. We all have different instigating factors, but the end result is the same—we have to figure out how to keep from hurting others due to our hurts, and it’s going to take a lot of failure and forgiveness to get there.
Some aspects I loved in particular—Lombardo’s writing is stunning without becoming overwrought. I mean: “his arrival was a bang, a bird against glass.” And her depiction of early motherhood. When I was a new mom, I thought nobody wrote about early motherhood—the struggles and the love paired together in such a confusing way. I think I was just not drawn to those books until I could relate to them, but now I’m always grateful to find stories that relate to my complicated experience.
Anyway, a lot of you will probably think this is boring, if online reviews can be believed, but this is my favorite book I’ve read this year.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was really excited to read this book because of how much I loved her debut. This book was a little slower and mundane by comparison. I think that is by design. I found myself frustrated at times by the descriptions of everyday ordinary life goings on but then realized that is what creates some of the tension that Julia experiences throughout her life. I found Alma to be very unlikable, and her behavior was cringy in trying to demonstrate a “typical teenager”. That might be cultural. I didn’t cuss at or with my parents and my children didn’t either. I don’t think that level of entitlement would have been tolerated either. Most of the interactions with Alma involved, while I understand the point, just left me disliking her more and more. And her parents rarely, if ever, addressed her behavior. Julia’s relationship with her mother was at the center of everything and I wished more of that was revealed sooner because the relationship with Helen felt very disjointed for the first half of the story. All of Julia’s relationships were very intriguing and he m glad we got to know the inter-workings of them all. That said, this book is really long, and I was bored at times. I really do enjoy the authors writing style and I think the beautiful writing is what keeps me turning the pages. I did shed some tears at the end and I think that’s a testament to how well-developed the characters are and how vested in their lives I became.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
sad
My review feels unfair. I went from a fantasy genre where I was obsessed, to this. It was like a screeching stop and I found myself just getting through it and not fully enjoying it. Again, I did this to myself.
Julia was very hard to like in the beginning. But giving it time my empathy grew a smidge as well.
Julia was very hard to like in the beginning. But giving it time my empathy grew a smidge as well.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
SAME AS IT EVER WAS is either the most or least depressing title possible, depending on your reading of this book by Claire Lombardo, whose novel follows Julia and her family. The title raises the central questions: Do people really change? Is loving life a matter of deciding to appreciate what you have? Is loving and being loved enough? What do people need in order to live a fulfilling life? These evergreen questions felt somehow simultaneously well-trod and fresh in this story.
The book begins and ends with Julia’s life in the present, when her two children are about to graduate high school and are finishing college, but spends a lot of time in Julia’s life when she was new to being a mother and some time with Julia as a child. The parts about new motherhood were both the most affecting and realistic, though that could be more about me than about the writing. One thing I appreciated throughout was that there was drama and some action in this book, but it all felt true to life in that life goes on. Big choices were made and relationships stretched or evolved or paused, but the world kept turning. I think this book also did a nice job of showing a range of parent-child relationships without necessarily labeling some as good or bad (though there was a bit of that from the characters), but moreso exploring what characters wanted and could and could not get from the people around them.
This isn’t a very happy book overall- one of the happiest moments near the end even had me sobbing- but I would recommend it.
SAME AS IT EVER WAS is either the most or least depressing title possible, depending on your reading of this book by Claire Lombardo, whose novel follows Julia and her family. The title raises the central questions: Do people really change? Is loving life a matter of deciding to appreciate what you have? Is loving and being loved enough? What do people need in order to live a fulfilling life? These evergreen questions felt somehow simultaneously well-trod and fresh in this story.
The book begins and ends with Julia’s life in the present, when her two children are about to graduate high school and are finishing college, but spends a lot of time in Julia’s life when she was new to being a mother and some time with Julia as a child. The parts about new motherhood were both the most affecting and realistic, though that could be more about me than about the writing. One thing I appreciated throughout was that there was drama and some action in this book, but it all felt true to life in that life goes on. Big choices were made and relationships stretched or evolved or paused, but the world kept turning. I think this book also did a nice job of showing a range of parent-child relationships without necessarily labeling some as good or bad (though there was a bit of that from the characters), but moreso exploring what characters wanted and could and could not get from the people around them.
This isn’t a very happy book overall- one of the happiest moments near the end even had me sobbing- but I would recommend it.