infinitezest 's review for:

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

2.0

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Parts of this book were really good, and other parts left me thinking, "What the...?" It seemed like Moore was trying to tell two different stories here and they didn't really mesh very well. I really enjoyed the parts that were about a white couple adopting a black girl and trying to navigate parenthood while being sensitive to their racial differences. But this story is weighed down by the other story of the main character's coming of age in a New England college and starting to resent her hickish hometown and family. The narrator often notices when other people are being pretentious but she herself is often making pretentious and snobbish observations. And then a third story suddenly jumps in at the end and further confuses the point of the book - I have no idea what that was supposed to be.