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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
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
This was recommended to me by a bookseller. I can understand why they liked it but it is a bit slow and not as interesting as I would like it to be.
I enjoyed the narrative device of the literal walk around 1984 Manhattan prompting the memory walk through the main character's life. Lillian is strong, resilient, flawed, witty, successful, old, human. I miss her already.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Being in a place where the weather did not reflect my mood. I was raining; the sun mocked my sadness.
Yooo, this writing, loved it.
This is the story of Lillian, 85 yo, who takes a walk through New York but also through her life. It happens on the New Year's eve of 1985 and while she walks through a changing city she start reminiscing her life. Not the whole story happens in the past, there are many events that happen on her walk and it shows how dynamic city life is and why she loved the city so much.
Lillian's character is amazing, super smart and witty and ahead of her time. Like, she was having a talk with her boss about a raise and she was not happy with the fact that men earn more than women (still true) and her boss said that the men have a family to feed. And her reply was "Nobody asked these fellow salaries to reproduce themselves". Lmaoooo
I also liked how even in 1985 she felt that media will eventually hurt social life by seeing how people would go to bars to watch TV instead of talking to each other.
Anyway, I liked this a lot. 5/5 !!!
In 1985, eighty-six year old Lillian Boxfish once again defies stereotypes and the advice of others, walking alone at night through New York City, revisiting and ruminating on her past, while still very much alive to the present.
Lillian's aunt Sadie was a Manhattan career girl who wrote poems about her elegant advertising creation Phoebe. She inspired Lillie. In 1926 Lillie arrived in Manhattan, secured a copywriter job at R. H. Macy's, and in the 1930s became the highest paid female in advertising--and a best selling published poet. Lionized and the media's darling, sophisticated and daring, Lillian had been on top.
Now it is New Year's Eve, 1985. Lillian puts on her forty-year-old fur coat, applies her signature lipstick, Helena Rubinstein's Orange Fire, pulls on a pair of boots, and takes to the sidewalk. She has planned one last adventure to end the year. Destination: Domenico's for a do-over of a steak dinner that ended badly twenty years previous.
Lillian's life is revealed in bits and pieces through her memories; she came, she conquered; she fell in love and became a wife and mother; she lost herself, and then her man. Once a household name, her books are found in the sale pile outside the bookstore--worthless.
Don't think she is held hostage by her past. Lillian likes to keep up to date. She likes hip-hop for its use of words and is thrilled by break-dancing. She has a 'nostalgia for the new.' She makes friends with everyone she meets along the way, and fearlessly bargains with muggers. The city has lost it's lustre, the old places are gone or declined, but Lillian has never wanted to be anywhere else.
Non-linear in structure, the book must grab readers by Lillian's personal charisma and the mystery of her past. When Max arrives on the scene the drama picks up considerably as we learn about their passionate love and the marriage that required Lillian to give up her career and brought depression and alcoholism, shock treatment, and Max's affair.
The novel was inspired by a real ad woman, Margaret Fishback. Kathleen Rooney felt a deep connection to Fishback and wanted to bring her story to a new generation. The novel is also a love story to the city, memorializing its heyday but also celebrating its 20th c multicultural vitality.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Lillian's aunt Sadie was a Manhattan career girl who wrote poems about her elegant advertising creation Phoebe. She inspired Lillie. In 1926 Lillie arrived in Manhattan, secured a copywriter job at R. H. Macy's, and in the 1930s became the highest paid female in advertising--and a best selling published poet. Lionized and the media's darling, sophisticated and daring, Lillian had been on top.
Now it is New Year's Eve, 1985. Lillian puts on her forty-year-old fur coat, applies her signature lipstick, Helena Rubinstein's Orange Fire, pulls on a pair of boots, and takes to the sidewalk. She has planned one last adventure to end the year. Destination: Domenico's for a do-over of a steak dinner that ended badly twenty years previous.
Lillian's life is revealed in bits and pieces through her memories; she came, she conquered; she fell in love and became a wife and mother; she lost herself, and then her man. Once a household name, her books are found in the sale pile outside the bookstore--worthless.
Don't think she is held hostage by her past. Lillian likes to keep up to date. She likes hip-hop for its use of words and is thrilled by break-dancing. She has a 'nostalgia for the new.' She makes friends with everyone she meets along the way, and fearlessly bargains with muggers. The city has lost it's lustre, the old places are gone or declined, but Lillian has never wanted to be anywhere else.
Non-linear in structure, the book must grab readers by Lillian's personal charisma and the mystery of her past. When Max arrives on the scene the drama picks up considerably as we learn about their passionate love and the marriage that required Lillian to give up her career and brought depression and alcoholism, shock treatment, and Max's affair.
The novel was inspired by a real ad woman, Margaret Fishback. Kathleen Rooney felt a deep connection to Fishback and wanted to bring her story to a new generation. The novel is also a love story to the city, memorializing its heyday but also celebrating its 20th c multicultural vitality.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Rooney's novel has received a lot of praise, so maybe my "meh" response is my fault.
I just didn't have much affection for the character. This is odd, considering that as a young adult, I fantasized about living in Manhattan and working in the publishing business (although Boxfish works in advertising).
Set in 1984, Boxfish is in her mid 80s and spends New Year's Eve walking around Manhattan, reflecting on her decades spent in the city and engaging with a broad swath of its current residents. Boxfish wrote advertising copy for Macy's department store and published a handful of poetry collections. She's an iconoclast, living on her own terms. Her most prized possession is her wit--although for a time it was a person. (Read it to learn to whom she had an intoxicating attachment.)
I kept thinking that I would have more compassion for Boxfish if she were a real person. Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and found out that the novel is based on a real person and that Rooney won a grant to study Margaret Fishback's papers. I wish this information had been predominately announced at the start of the novel.
I usually preview books more carefully, and I'm kicking myself for this failure to do so in this instance. But I didn't like it enough to reread it with fresh eyes, but I like it well enough to recommend it and to be happy that Rooney is giving Fishback some recognition for her pioneering work as an ad woman.
I just didn't have much affection for the character. This is odd, considering that as a young adult, I fantasized about living in Manhattan and working in the publishing business (although Boxfish works in advertising).
Set in 1984, Boxfish is in her mid 80s and spends New Year's Eve walking around Manhattan, reflecting on her decades spent in the city and engaging with a broad swath of its current residents. Boxfish wrote advertising copy for Macy's department store and published a handful of poetry collections. She's an iconoclast, living on her own terms. Her most prized possession is her wit--although for a time it was a person. (Read it to learn to whom she had an intoxicating attachment.)
I kept thinking that I would have more compassion for Boxfish if she were a real person. Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and found out that the novel is based on a real person and that Rooney won a grant to study Margaret Fishback's papers. I wish this information had been predominately announced at the start of the novel.
I usually preview books more carefully, and I'm kicking myself for this failure to do so in this instance. But I didn't like it enough to reread it with fresh eyes, but I like it well enough to recommend it and to be happy that Rooney is giving Fishback some recognition for her pioneering work as an ad woman.
A charming novel based on the real-life queen of advertising in the mid 1900s. Lillian shares her story as she walks the streets of Manhattan on New Year’s Eve —her life, her work, her loves, her losses. And through it all, her wonderful, witty turn of phrase.