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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Bookstagram forced me to read this. I posted a Never TBR stack, and everyone was like "but Kaytee, you HAVE to!" So I did, and it was fine. Not amazing, not bad, but bit my favorite thing I've ever read....
Loved it, extremely gentle and warm, had me reflecting on adult friendships and connection. As things start to get more serious in the second and third parts, it’s all treated with tenderness and compassion, infused with the wisdom that the unavoidable heartbreak of aging is integral to life itself
There are some books that are simple, and clean, and spare, and true. Crossing to Safety was, for me, one of those books. A recommendation from an elderly friend's book club, I started the book with some annoyance--an "American masterpiece" I had never heard of, written by a "celebrated" American writer whose name I did not know? But the individuals at the center of the book, coupled in sets of two and four, were intriguing from the beginning. Could it be that "nature or nurture" is not only a question about parenting but a question about each of us? Are we born who we are or do we form each other? The couples in this book demonstrate the force of the latter as they each become more and more the essence of themselves. Unlikely, the book seems to say, that they would be the same people without their intertwined relationship. The book is gentle and, although there is sorrow, it happens as it sometimes does in life...naturally, as if it were meant to be. This may be a book that is best suited to be read on in the lazy afternoons of summer Sundays and not in the noisy overheated environment of an airport terminal or subway car. But it is one of the few books that I admired and loved reading with total acceptance of its flaws. My hat, Mr. Stegner--apparently as humble as he was wise--is off to you.
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4 ⭐️ The 4 main characters in this book are complex, well developed and everyone will see themselves in at least one of them. The last third was a bit too drawn out for my liking
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was the second Stegner novel I read, anticipating as good a read as I had with the first (The Spectator Bird). The novel is situated in lives and careers of academics, so it was a bit rarified for those situated here on earth. And also one of the two couple protagonists were from extreme wealth, that being another disconnect, even balanced as it was by the struggling second couple protagonists.
As with the first novel, though, I could forgive a whole lot of cultural distance by Stegner's always beautifully wrought language. I'd likely read it again just for the pleasure his sentences delivered.
As with the first novel, though, I could forgive a whole lot of cultural distance by Stegner's always beautifully wrought language. I'd likely read it again just for the pleasure his sentences delivered.
On some levels, a simple story: an unlikely friendship of two couples with husbands in academia in the depression era. Yet Crossing to Safety is also a beautiful and profound novel on the strength of friendship, the ebbs and flows of marriage and family, and the trials of suffering that span geography and time.