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itmehp 's review for:
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
I chose this novel for one of my Book of The Month Club subscription choices, and it wasn’t bad. It won’t be a favorite but it wasn’t awful. It’s about an 84 (85) (she constantly lies about her age) year old woman who is alone on New Year’s Eve. She has long been divorced and her only son is grown with his own family. She usually does the same thing every year, goes to the same restaurant, and never veers off course. This year she decides to go on a walk, because walking is her thing. She revisits a variety of different places that all hold meaning to her in their own way and tells a story of why it impacted her life. That’s it.
Boxfish was a cute read, but it will not go down in literary history, it will forever stay a cute read. This book wasn’t one you got lost in easily, I often found myself thinking of what I need to do that day, what I want for dinner, what I need to get at the grocery store, etc. I can usually sit down for hours and power through a book because I’m so lost in it; but this one I would read for a little bit then get up and do something then sit back down and read again. It was so hard to keep my attention solely focused on this storyline. Rooney tried to make her time period change obvious, as she would do one chapter of Lillian visiting said important place, and the next would be her telling the story of why it’s important. But even doing that it was still confusing. I kept thinking this took place in modern-day New York City but it was supposed to be happening in 1984. There weren’t real-time markers that made you lean one way or the other, but it could have been done a little better to definitely set her time period and avoid the confusion.
I didn’t hate the book and had a hard time with whether I should give it a 3 or 4 star review. I finally chose three stars because it just wasn’t provoking enough, or too provoking depending on the definition. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. Even as I got closer and closer to the end of the book I thought it would peak, but again I was let down. I can tell that Rooney tried to end on a note that she somewhat alluded to in past chapters, but even then she never expanded on it enough to make it her climax.
While Rooney is a skilled writer grammatically, she just needs a better storyline. Boxfish was a cute old lady and you liked her while reading, but her story just wasn’t fascinating enough to write an entire book about her.
View my other reviews at:
www.utterlynovel.com
Boxfish was a cute read, but it will not go down in literary history, it will forever stay a cute read. This book wasn’t one you got lost in easily, I often found myself thinking of what I need to do that day, what I want for dinner, what I need to get at the grocery store, etc. I can usually sit down for hours and power through a book because I’m so lost in it; but this one I would read for a little bit then get up and do something then sit back down and read again. It was so hard to keep my attention solely focused on this storyline. Rooney tried to make her time period change obvious, as she would do one chapter of Lillian visiting said important place, and the next would be her telling the story of why it’s important. But even doing that it was still confusing. I kept thinking this took place in modern-day New York City but it was supposed to be happening in 1984. There weren’t real-time markers that made you lean one way or the other, but it could have been done a little better to definitely set her time period and avoid the confusion.
I didn’t hate the book and had a hard time with whether I should give it a 3 or 4 star review. I finally chose three stars because it just wasn’t provoking enough, or too provoking depending on the definition. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. Even as I got closer and closer to the end of the book I thought it would peak, but again I was let down. I can tell that Rooney tried to end on a note that she somewhat alluded to in past chapters, but even then she never expanded on it enough to make it her climax.
While Rooney is a skilled writer grammatically, she just needs a better storyline. Boxfish was a cute old lady and you liked her while reading, but her story just wasn’t fascinating enough to write an entire book about her.
View my other reviews at:
www.utterlynovel.com