amysbrittain 's review for:

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

2.0

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Eh...the beginning was charming, but I felt Moore overdid the schtick between the main female character and everyone else throughout the book (too much punnery, jokey-jokeyness, etc). And her foreshadowing grew tiresome too--just let the story unfold, already. You see where some of the story is going from a mile away, but the part that I didn't see coming was heartwrenching and too much to bear without more of a framework set up to cushion the blow. A pretty large issue wasn't revisited or resolved. I have a hard time reading about characters' consistent bad decisions, carelessness, and callousness and the dire consequences of them, and that's what this book explores.