A review by sammies_shelf
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This was a slow, meandering read inside the mind of a complex, ballsy, wise, melancholy woman named Lillian Boxfish as she takes a walk on New Year's Eve 1984. I really enjoyed the development of Lillian's character as she shares more and more of her stories, I loved her interactions with strangers as she walks through New York City, and I liked how these fed into each other. I appreciate and find very interesting the basis of Lillian on the real highest-paid woman copywriter in the world in the 1930s, who also worked for Macy's. I think the writing is lovely. This was an enjoyable book with some great, heartwarming moments and interesting stories.

Favorite quotes:

"This, I imagine, is why I love walking in the city, taking to the streets in pursuit of some spontaneous and near-arbitrary objective. If one knocks oneself out of one's routine--and in doing so knocks others gently out of theirs--then one can now and again create these momentary opportunities to be better than one is."

"I am proud that I fought so hard against the world, relieved that I made my fragile truce with it. I can greet it now, from time to time, as it really is."
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