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emc24me's review
3.0
There should have been a warning on this book. Had I known the depths of tragedy contained within its chapters, it would have stayed on the shelf at the library.
lachimolala981's review
3.0
Book hangover still in effect, so I'll try to gather my thoughts.
I almost gave up on this. The writing style wasn't my jam and I began skimming a lot until the major event in the storyline happened. And BAM, it punched me in the face, hooked in, and didn't let go until the end.
This author has written about the "after" of losing a loved on so well that I was jarringly transported back to it. Heart wrenching and profound and exhausting and....all of it.
This book was tedious, shocking, horrible, sad, and absolutely beautiful. I'm mostly glad I read it and also wish a bit that I hadn't. It was much more intense than I anticipated.
I almost gave up on this. The writing style wasn't my jam and I began skimming a lot until the major event in the storyline happened. And BAM, it punched me in the face, hooked in, and didn't let go until the end.
This author has written about the "after" of losing a loved on so well that I was jarringly transported back to it. Heart wrenching and profound and exhausting and....all of it.
This book was tedious, shocking, horrible, sad, and absolutely beautiful. I'm mostly glad I read it and also wish a bit that I hadn't. It was much more intense than I anticipated.
philippakmoore's review against another edition
4.0
Read it in one afternoon. I love Quindlen's writing, you know someone is a good writer when they make the tiniest, most insignificant moments of everyday life mesmerising. One True Thing remains my favourite but this was a great read and a compelling, finely wrought story that is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.
novelvisits's review
5.0
Every Last One & Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen | Double Review
{Common Themes}
Quindlen, A Writer of Women – In both Every Last One and Alternate Side I was struck by just how well Anna Quindlen developed her female leads. Both were women so real I felt like I easily knew them. Mary Beth Latham might be one of my own friends or neighbors, and under slightly different circumstances I might say the same of Nora Nolan. Quindlen thoroughly fleshes out her protagonists and makes an entire story in which every step they take, every decision they make resonates with authenticity.
Family Relationships – It’s clear to me that Anna Quindlen likes to write about what she seems to know best, families. In Every Last One her primary focus was on Mary Beth Latham’s relationships with her three teenage children. As with all teens they could be fun, difficult, and emotional and Mary Beth worried about each for different reasons. Her relationship to her husband was just as real, but took a bit of a backseat in this story, whereas in Alternate Side the relationship between Nora Nolan and her husband was at the heart of its story. Nora’s children were just slightly older and on the brink of being independent. In both books the family relationships rang completely true.
A Community, For Better or Worse – In Every Last One Quindlen built a network of friends (both close and not so close), relatives, employees, other parents, and friends of children to create a real sense of community: wonderful, but sometimes cloying. In Alternate Side, the bigger community was the city of New York in its totality, but within that was the tiny dead-end street where much of the drama of Nora’s life occurred.
Best Friends – I loved that in both books the women whom the stories were about had a best friend in the most fundamental sense. Alice and Jennie, each close friends since college, were unconditionally present for Mary Beth and Nora when needed. That unwavering loyalty is everything that a best friend should be and these two shone.
A Pivotal Event – The fact that both books had a moment that changed the trajectory of the entire story is no huge surprise. Most stories have such a moment, but I was startled by both in Quindlen’s books. The events forever changed the course of her heroines’ lives, admittedly more so for Mary Beth than for Nora. For both women, I appreciated the metamorphosis Quindlen delivered as they came to terms with a new reality.
{Final Thoughts on Each}
Every Last One
Everyone was right, I should have tried Anna Quindlen a long time ago. I thought Every Last One was amazing. Before I had any idea where the book was going, I was enthralled by the normalcy of the Latham family. They could have been my family, or my neighbors. I liked them. I worried for them because I knew tragedy in some form had to await. What actually happened I never saw coming. I was stunned and also a little awed that Quindlen could so successfully go there. Her resolution of this story felt exactly right to me, perfectly real and that’s why I so loved Every Last One. Grade: A
Alternate Side
I liked the story of Nora Nolan at a critical time in her life. Her children were out of the house, her husband was restless and their dreams were no longer the same. I also really appreciated the secondary star of this book, the city of New York itself: the lives it contains, the people at odds, the way the city is ever-changing, always moving forward and never looking back. Nora was the embodiment of NYC and that was fantastic! If I only focused on these part of Alternate Side, it was wonderful, but there were a lot of other parts. The entire parking theme that ran through the rest of this story got old. I know parking is a HUGE issue if you live in New York, but honestly, it’s boring to the rest of us. Similarly, the walking of dogs and the rats, I could have also done without. I understand that these conflicts helped to move Nora through her story; I’d have just enjoyed it more had Quindlen found a different way. Still, I liked much more than I didn’t about Alternate Side, so please don’t be scared away by my (or others’) review. Try Alternate Side and decided for yourself, especially if you’re an Anna Quindlen fan as I now am! Grade: B
Note: I received a copy of this book from the Random House (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/double-anna-quindlen-review-every-last-one-alternate-side/
{Common Themes}
Quindlen, A Writer of Women – In both Every Last One and Alternate Side I was struck by just how well Anna Quindlen developed her female leads. Both were women so real I felt like I easily knew them. Mary Beth Latham might be one of my own friends or neighbors, and under slightly different circumstances I might say the same of Nora Nolan. Quindlen thoroughly fleshes out her protagonists and makes an entire story in which every step they take, every decision they make resonates with authenticity.
Family Relationships – It’s clear to me that Anna Quindlen likes to write about what she seems to know best, families. In Every Last One her primary focus was on Mary Beth Latham’s relationships with her three teenage children. As with all teens they could be fun, difficult, and emotional and Mary Beth worried about each for different reasons. Her relationship to her husband was just as real, but took a bit of a backseat in this story, whereas in Alternate Side the relationship between Nora Nolan and her husband was at the heart of its story. Nora’s children were just slightly older and on the brink of being independent. In both books the family relationships rang completely true.
A Community, For Better or Worse – In Every Last One Quindlen built a network of friends (both close and not so close), relatives, employees, other parents, and friends of children to create a real sense of community: wonderful, but sometimes cloying. In Alternate Side, the bigger community was the city of New York in its totality, but within that was the tiny dead-end street where much of the drama of Nora’s life occurred.
Best Friends – I loved that in both books the women whom the stories were about had a best friend in the most fundamental sense. Alice and Jennie, each close friends since college, were unconditionally present for Mary Beth and Nora when needed. That unwavering loyalty is everything that a best friend should be and these two shone.
A Pivotal Event – The fact that both books had a moment that changed the trajectory of the entire story is no huge surprise. Most stories have such a moment, but I was startled by both in Quindlen’s books. The events forever changed the course of her heroines’ lives, admittedly more so for Mary Beth than for Nora. For both women, I appreciated the metamorphosis Quindlen delivered as they came to terms with a new reality.
{Final Thoughts on Each}
Every Last One
Everyone was right, I should have tried Anna Quindlen a long time ago. I thought Every Last One was amazing. Before I had any idea where the book was going, I was enthralled by the normalcy of the Latham family. They could have been my family, or my neighbors. I liked them. I worried for them because I knew tragedy in some form had to await. What actually happened I never saw coming. I was stunned and also a little awed that Quindlen could so successfully go there. Her resolution of this story felt exactly right to me, perfectly real and that’s why I so loved Every Last One. Grade: A
Alternate Side
I liked the story of Nora Nolan at a critical time in her life. Her children were out of the house, her husband was restless and their dreams were no longer the same. I also really appreciated the secondary star of this book, the city of New York itself: the lives it contains, the people at odds, the way the city is ever-changing, always moving forward and never looking back. Nora was the embodiment of NYC and that was fantastic! If I only focused on these part of Alternate Side, it was wonderful, but there were a lot of other parts. The entire parking theme that ran through the rest of this story got old. I know parking is a HUGE issue if you live in New York, but honestly, it’s boring to the rest of us. Similarly, the walking of dogs and the rats, I could have also done without. I understand that these conflicts helped to move Nora through her story; I’d have just enjoyed it more had Quindlen found a different way. Still, I liked much more than I didn’t about Alternate Side, so please don’t be scared away by my (or others’) review. Try Alternate Side and decided for yourself, especially if you’re an Anna Quindlen fan as I now am! Grade: B
Note: I received a copy of this book from the Random House (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/double-anna-quindlen-review-every-last-one-alternate-side/
anniewill's review
5.0
I loved this book so much. I am a huge fan of Anna Quindlen's- both her fiction and non-fiction and of course, her columns. This book just blew me away. I loved her style of writing (the details!), and the story had me mesmerized from page one.
I sobbed my way through the final third of the book. I could not stop thinking about the story after finishing----and I read the entire book in two days. I could not put this book down! I'm actually going to re-read the book right now.
I sobbed my way through the final third of the book. I could not stop thinking about the story after finishing----and I read the entire book in two days. I could not put this book down! I'm actually going to re-read the book right now.
shesnotthere's review
3.0
This was a book club selection. I thought I had already read something by Anna Quindlen, but I had not. She basically writes the same genre as Jodi Picoult & Anita Shreve, where a perfect family lives idyllic lives until SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENS... I'm not knocking the premise, because I do read these books from time to time. I liked Ms. Quindlen's writing style. She didn't dumb anything down or make the plot ridiculously implausible (which is the reason why I don't read Jodi Picoult anymore). I did have three issues with the book that just irritated me to no end, sort of like a strawberry seed that gets stuck between the teeth. The first issue I had was some of the main characters were not fully developed. The father/husband had about five sentences total in the entire book. Secondly, Mary Beth, the mother, felt no guilt about anything. If I were in her shoes, I would have forever felt like I should have been alert enough to stop what had happened or at least been able to call the police. Also, she never had any sort of realization that her friend, Oliva, took her & Max in to her cottage while she refused to take Kiernan in after the death of his younger brother. Plus, she had no remorse about having the affair with Kiernan's father. She was more concerned that someone might have found out about the affair rather than feeling regret about the act itself. Thirdly, there were way too many characters in the aftermath of the murders. The last third of the book seemed way to muddled. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I wouldn't mind reading a different novel by Ms. Quindlen.
rebamaepie's review
eta: My FirstReads copy arrived today! 3/30/10
I won an advanced copy from the publisher through GoodReads, how cool is that! I promise to read it and review it as soon as I receive it!
I won an advanced copy from the publisher through GoodReads, how cool is that! I promise to read it and review it as soon as I receive it!
triciaralph's review
4.0
I kept waiting for something to happen and when it finally did, I couldn't stop reading it.