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readersaurusrobin 's review for:
The Borrower
by Rebecca Makkai
Reading The Borrower is like having a long sit-down with an old friend, full of asides and references you're supposed to know. It's great!
I could pick this book apart, if I wanted to: Lucy is not a believable character: She's super-smart, but has no career plans, gorgeous, but doesn't date or have friends, "falls into" a job that requires an advanced degree she doesn't have, and allows herself to be led into a criminal act by a ten year old boy.
BUT
It is a fantastically enjoyable read. Makkai gives a great turn of phrase, and the book is fun! At the same time, it's about the fictions we allow ourselves to believe about ourselves and just about everyone else we meet, and how that keeps us apart.
Passages I want to remember:
"Excepting the books, I never liked to amass more possessions than could be moved in a cartop U-Haul. You never know when the Cossacks are going to invade." (p.31)
"In a library in Missouri that was covered with vines
Lived thousands of books in a hundred straight lines
A boy came in at half past nine
Every Saturday, rain or shine
His book selections were clan-des-tine." (p. 35)
"Too Much Tequila, by Margaret Wise Brown. The Very Obvious Nose Job, by Eric Carle." (p. 59)
"I'd watched The Music Man enough times as a child to be wary of smiling musicians. The way they waltz into your library singing, swinging that con man briefcase and telling you to be spontaneous. They tell you this town could be saved with a little luck and a good marching band." (p.68)
I do crazy miss being a children's librarian.
I could pick this book apart, if I wanted to: Lucy is not a believable character: She's super-smart, but has no career plans, gorgeous, but doesn't date or have friends, "falls into" a job that requires an advanced degree she doesn't have, and allows herself to be led into a criminal act by a ten year old boy.
BUT
It is a fantastically enjoyable read. Makkai gives a great turn of phrase, and the book is fun! At the same time, it's about the fictions we allow ourselves to believe about ourselves and just about everyone else we meet, and how that keeps us apart.
Passages I want to remember:
"Excepting the books, I never liked to amass more possessions than could be moved in a cartop U-Haul. You never know when the Cossacks are going to invade." (p.31)
"In a library in Missouri that was covered with vines
Lived thousands of books in a hundred straight lines
A boy came in at half past nine
Every Saturday, rain or shine
His book selections were clan-des-tine." (p. 35)
"Too Much Tequila, by Margaret Wise Brown. The Very Obvious Nose Job, by Eric Carle." (p. 59)
"I'd watched The Music Man enough times as a child to be wary of smiling musicians. The way they waltz into your library singing, swinging that con man briefcase and telling you to be spontaneous. They tell you this town could be saved with a little luck and a good marching band." (p.68)
I do crazy miss being a children's librarian.