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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Set in the early days of the Trump presidency and the rise of #MeToo movement, Impersonation explores the intersection between what women are willing to accept and what they need and must learn to demand for themselves.
Allie Lang is the forty-year old single mother of five-year-old Cassie. Her writing career was sidelined back in Dartmouth when she resisted her advisor’s advances. She later left a good job to help her mother care for her ailing step-dad. Now, she cobbles together an income by substitute teaching, landscape work, and ghostwriting memoirs for celebrities of all calibers.
Al has a live-in boyfriend who is a great guy and a wonderful male role model for Cassie. But, he is also a recovering capitalist whose divorce spurred him to seek a more meaningful life. Between odd jobs, he travels across country. Al is afraid to demand more of his time, knowing he needs to find himself. She also resists becoming dependent on any one.
When a lucrative book deal falls through after the celebrity is named in the #MeToo movement, Al is given the job of writing a memoir about motherhood for a nationally known feminist. It should be a dream job, especially after the smarmy stories the last guy wanted to tell her. Except, Al can’t get Lana to talk about her life and has to, well, basically, make up stories.
Al struggles with the basic needs of putting a roof over their heads and raising a son and dealing with her parents and here-and-gone again lover. And, of course, trying to pin down her celebrity so she can finish the book and get paid.
The purpose of the memoir becomes apparent as Lana decides for a political career. Al’s purpose is to make an intelligent, powerful feminist appealing to Middle-American women–an anti-Hillary. As Al impersonates Lana, in the memoir Lana is impersonating the typical American mother and housewife. Al has not recourse but to plumb her own life for insights and stories.
The lesson Al must learn is that being independent does not mean a woman can’t ask for what she needs, like a better salary and a committed relationship and help in juggling job and motherhood.
I was pleased with the competent writing, the humor that had me laughing out loud, and the realistic portrayal of motherhood. Al works from home, and the challenges will resonate with many women who had to work from home with kids in the house during the pandemic. Best of all, Al is a mirror to the many ways women are more worried about taking care of other people than we are ourselves. When Al empowers herself, a happy ending ensues and she and Lana become a powerful team.
I received a free galley through NetGalley from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
Allie Lang is the forty-year old single mother of five-year-old Cassie. Her writing career was sidelined back in Dartmouth when she resisted her advisor’s advances. She later left a good job to help her mother care for her ailing step-dad. Now, she cobbles together an income by substitute teaching, landscape work, and ghostwriting memoirs for celebrities of all calibers.
Al has a live-in boyfriend who is a great guy and a wonderful male role model for Cassie. But, he is also a recovering capitalist whose divorce spurred him to seek a more meaningful life. Between odd jobs, he travels across country. Al is afraid to demand more of his time, knowing he needs to find himself. She also resists becoming dependent on any one.
When a lucrative book deal falls through after the celebrity is named in the #MeToo movement, Al is given the job of writing a memoir about motherhood for a nationally known feminist. It should be a dream job, especially after the smarmy stories the last guy wanted to tell her. Except, Al can’t get Lana to talk about her life and has to, well, basically, make up stories.
Al struggles with the basic needs of putting a roof over their heads and raising a son and dealing with her parents and here-and-gone again lover. And, of course, trying to pin down her celebrity so she can finish the book and get paid.
The purpose of the memoir becomes apparent as Lana decides for a political career. Al’s purpose is to make an intelligent, powerful feminist appealing to Middle-American women–an anti-Hillary. As Al impersonates Lana, in the memoir Lana is impersonating the typical American mother and housewife. Al has not recourse but to plumb her own life for insights and stories.
The lesson Al must learn is that being independent does not mean a woman can’t ask for what she needs, like a better salary and a committed relationship and help in juggling job and motherhood.
I was pleased with the competent writing, the humor that had me laughing out loud, and the realistic portrayal of motherhood. Al works from home, and the challenges will resonate with many women who had to work from home with kids in the house during the pandemic. Best of all, Al is a mirror to the many ways women are more worried about taking care of other people than we are ourselves. When Al empowers herself, a happy ending ensues and she and Lana become a powerful team.
I received a free galley through NetGalley from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
I wanted to like this book because I agree with the political point of view & the effect that the 2016 election had on our country, particularly women. It was about so many things: motherhood, feminism, politics, #metoo movement, family, relationships. Too many issues so none of them were given enough time.
This was a very current, topical book. It takes place just before the 2016 election and goes through the 2018 midterm elections. Allie is struggling single mother who ekes out a living as a ghostwriter. When she gets hire to ghostwrite a book about her motherhood to soften the image of feminist lawyer, Lana Breban, she get more than she bargained for. Allie is likable enough but Lana does not come across very well at all. I liked the writing style and how the book covered so many hot topics. I received a ARC from LibraryThing.
This book was a hot mess, for me at least. The last paragraph of the dust jacket promises “a satirical, incisive snapshot of how so many of us now live, Impersonation tells a timely, insightful, and bitingly funny story of ambition, motherhood, and class.” First of all, the book isn’t funny, it’s depressing. Could the scene of 4 year old dumping a jaw into a fish tank at the dentist’s office be funny? Yes, but it wasn’t. The scene was more about the shame that Allie felt about her son’s behavior, and about how the dentist was trying to take advantage of her. It had a completely gross and somber overtone. I’m also missing the satire. The first half of the book talks about Lana as an amazing feminist, while completely missing the point of feminism… but that never gets addressed… at some point about halfway through the book the man hating is kind of just… dropped. Our main character finally has a bit of agency by the end of the book, but it’s too little, too late, as far as I’m concerned for all of the suffering the reader has to endure to get there. The politics are jammed down your throat rather than being a natural, cohesive part of the story. The writing is all over the place and rambling (much like this review, I’m aware).
This character driven book works. Perhaps, it is the time period, Allie's joy in motherhood, the constant balancing act, ghostwriting as a subject, or insight into the publishing world from an author who has long been part of the industry. Mostly, though, I think it is the way Allie's character is drawn. Allie, in all her imperfections, becomes a character I relate to.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/08/impersonation.html
Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/08/impersonation.html
Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour.
Fun, quick read and interesting plot line about the life & struggles of a ghostwriter. I was really disappointed with the ending though. I feel Allie was still exploited by Lana. Allie has to make up an entire motherhood for Lana based on her own experiences; that didn't change even after she was exposed as the ghostwriter. I wish Allie had stood up for herself by calling Lana to the carpet for giving her no material to work with. In my opinion the ending was an attempt by author to wrap everything up as neatly as possible so everyone gets a somewhat happy ending.
I received an ARC of this book as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer. A caveat: I went into this story with some mistaken impressions (not the least of which is that it would be a "Single White Female" thriller type of book, which is totally my fault for misunderstanding an initial blurb as well as the book's title). After receiving the book and reading the back cover summary, I then thought it would have more humor to the story. It did not. This is an edgy, mostly grim and frustrated story about a single mother raising her child while working as a ghost-writer to several high-profile clients, including an up-and-coming feminist fledgling politician. Much of the story followed Allie's fear and frustrations after our last presidential election (fears and frustrations I share, btw), and how these then affected her life. This is a well-written book but comes off as confused in tone and intent, as it feels that the author was trying to write too many stories at once. Was it a biting satire of recent political struggles in the United States from a feminist perspective? Was it a story about interpersonal relationships and how we sometimes struggle with the feelings we have about our loved ones? Was it a suspenseful story about how a ghost-writer for the rich and famous tempts fate by continuously breaking her NDA with her company (and suffers the subsequent fallout for it)? This book was trying to be all of those stories in one, but I felt the author was a bit ambitious in doing so. At times the book felt like it suffered from the same fictionalized criticism that Allie herself was given from her publisher/client's agent: too much educative talk and not enough anecdote/story. I did not find Allie likable, which was another source of my disconnect with the story. Again, while I share her political concerns and frustrations, the lackadaisical way she went about her life and interpersonal relationships was very hard to read. You could see many of her conflicts (and their subsequent resolutions) coming a mile away, which turned this into a book with a predictable ending. This book was more 2.5 stars than two for me, and I'm giving it a 3-star rating based on the author's writing ability.
An interesting concept of following the process of ghostwriting but overall the execution was lacklustre.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes