terri's review against another edition
2.0
This was a slow book with not much new to say. Yes, women can be overlooked in their own lives and live “in quiet desperation” but this is not new. Yes, women can be betrayed and can become angry at their lot; again, not new.
The catalyst was obvious and a long time coming. Disappointing, given the reviews.
The catalyst was obvious and a long time coming. Disappointing, given the reviews.
ambersnowpants's review against another edition
3.0
Eh, it was o-kay...
I did not like the narrator's voice, which, I guess fits with how much I disliked the main character. I found her to be intriguing for the first 2/3 of the book and her brand of crazy was just bizarre enough to keep me going. By the last 1/3, I thought the author was really grasping at a dead idea. Yeah, she is obsessed with this family and loves them all in varying degrees of alarming emotion and loyalty. Got it. As with any runway bestseller, this book does have a couple shining areas whether that be character development, unique dialogue, or particular strings of words that make you breathe out in a nice way when you hear them. It is worth your time but don't buy; borrow it instead.
I did not like the narrator's voice, which, I guess fits with how much I disliked the main character. I found her to be intriguing for the first 2/3 of the book and her brand of crazy was just bizarre enough to keep me going. By the last 1/3, I thought the author was really grasping at a dead idea. Yeah, she is obsessed with this family and loves them all in varying degrees of alarming emotion and loyalty. Got it. As with any runway bestseller, this book does have a couple shining areas whether that be character development, unique dialogue, or particular strings of words that make you breathe out in a nice way when you hear them. It is worth your time but don't buy; borrow it instead.
lgiegerich's review against another edition
2.0
Abandoned it about 50 pages in. Skimmed through some more, couldn't get into it. Better ways to spend my reading time!
wendoxford's review against another edition
4.0
This is an angry first person lament on "the woman upstairs" - the unfulfilled spinster. Nora lives in Boston and becomes entwined with an exotic people - the female (Italian) artist, her Lebanese husband and their son who is in her care at primary school. She falls in love with each of them differently - setting up a studio to do her work alongside the true artist. She is constantly putting herself down and bigging them up and ends up facing a betrayal she struggles to comprehend. An odd book but cringingly readable.
lynnannwalsh's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
settingshadow's review against another edition
5.0
One of the central tragedies of adulthood is that virtually no one reaches the childhood potential promised to them. There's simply only a handful of spots to truly be a protagonist in the national narrative. It was a blow to me to learn that I could become a great physician and a pretty decent scientist, but that it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever be known outside of my field. And it's particularly hard because once you make it to a field, you get to rub shoulders with the true giants and feel how little you are.
And that, in a nutshell, is the story of Nora Elridge. Looking at her life in her 30's and realizing that while she's a great teacher and an OK artist, she'll never make a name for herself and other people will always be better and more famous than her. And Nora sacrifices being the protagonist in her own, tiny little story, for being part of something grander. To pretend that this is a novel narrative would be foolish -- and indeed, Messud acknowledges that by directly quoting the famous Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock ("No, am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; am an attendant lord, one that will do...") -- but it's such a central narrative to humanity that I think it's worth revisiting.
What makes Messud's take on this tale particularly noteworthy are two things: 1) Messud's command of the English language, which is simply incomparable. She never weighs the story down with prose, but each sentence is precise and beautiful. And 2) telling this narrative from a female lens.
I've learned that women are being asked to do too much, so even when I feel like I'm doing a good job at work, I feel like I'm not being the protagonist in my parenting story (since parenting is supposed to be a narrative of lovingly hand-crafted...everything, every moment); when I feel like I'm doing a good job parenting, I feel like I'm not being the protagonist in the canonical scientist story, where science is in all-consuming passion; and when I'm doing either, I feel like I'm losing the plot of the story of being a part of a community of friends and neighbors, or being a leftist who has time during business hours to call my senators or being a book hobbyist, or or or. And yet, I find very few books that resonate with this tension the way that The Woman Upstairs does.
I also think that reading the reviews for this book on goodreads is a pretty incisive tale on why this book is needed: women who don't make it to becoming the protagonist are expected to be Nice above all things. That, in fact, is Messud's point: women have to either be a central protagonist, or they have to be the Woman Upstairs, who follows gender norms, and is nice and helpful and has no personality or drive. It's biting and true. And yet, many reviewers here seem to fault Nora Elridge for not constraining herself to that role -- quite exemplary of how this is a conversation that needs to happen.
And that, in a nutshell, is the story of Nora Elridge. Looking at her life in her 30's and realizing that while she's a great teacher and an OK artist, she'll never make a name for herself and other people will always be better and more famous than her. And Nora sacrifices being the protagonist in her own, tiny little story, for being part of something grander. To pretend that this is a novel narrative would be foolish -- and indeed, Messud acknowledges that by directly quoting the famous Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock ("No, am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; am an attendant lord, one that will do...") -- but it's such a central narrative to humanity that I think it's worth revisiting.
What makes Messud's take on this tale particularly noteworthy are two things: 1) Messud's command of the English language, which is simply incomparable. She never weighs the story down with prose, but each sentence is precise and beautiful. And 2) telling this narrative from a female lens.
I've learned that women are being asked to do too much, so even when I feel like I'm doing a good job at work, I feel like I'm not being the protagonist in my parenting story (since parenting is supposed to be a narrative of lovingly hand-crafted...everything, every moment); when I feel like I'm doing a good job parenting, I feel like I'm not being the protagonist in the canonical scientist story, where science is in all-consuming passion; and when I'm doing either, I feel like I'm losing the plot of the story of being a part of a community of friends and neighbors, or being a leftist who has time during business hours to call my senators or being a book hobbyist, or or or. And yet, I find very few books that resonate with this tension the way that The Woman Upstairs does.
I also think that reading the reviews for this book on goodreads is a pretty incisive tale on why this book is needed: women who don't make it to becoming the protagonist are expected to be Nice above all things. That, in fact, is Messud's point: women have to either be a central protagonist, or they have to be the Woman Upstairs, who follows gender norms, and is nice and helpful and has no personality or drive. It's biting and true. And yet, many reviewers here seem to fault Nora Elridge for not constraining herself to that role -- quite exemplary of how this is a conversation that needs to happen.
thatjamiea's review against another edition
2.0
I read an interview with the author of this book. She was asked what she thought about people disliking Nora. She seemed okay with that. It didn't bother her. People are uncomfortable, she said, with characters they dislike.
This is true, for me. I need a connection with the characters I read about and I made no connections in this book. I liked a few, secondary characters, but the main characters where no one i would like to know and didn't have qualities I'd like to see in myself.
It's not that I was discomforted by Nora's life, though I did feel sad that the things she wanted (children, success) were slipping through her fingers. It was that Nora constantly got it all wrong. In huge ways. A lady crush is okay. We all have had, in our lives, someone we couldn't get enough of. Nora recounts her attraction to Serina as sexual and maybe it was, but I just read as this weird, unrequited lady crush where the object was nice enough, on the surface, while Nora kept driving forward.
It was just a whole book of WTF, I guess. It started to feel like Anna Karenina and I started wishing Nora would just shut up and do something.
She never did.
No confessions or confrontation. She goes on for pages and chapters about her barely contained fury, but there's nothing furious in her actions.
This is true, for me. I need a connection with the characters I read about and I made no connections in this book. I liked a few, secondary characters, but the main characters where no one i would like to know and didn't have qualities I'd like to see in myself.
It's not that I was discomforted by Nora's life, though I did feel sad that the things she wanted (children, success) were slipping through her fingers. It was that Nora constantly got it all wrong. In huge ways. A lady crush is okay. We all have had, in our lives, someone we couldn't get enough of. Nora recounts her attraction to Serina as sexual and maybe it was, but I just read as this weird, unrequited lady crush where the object was nice enough, on the surface, while Nora kept driving forward.
It was just a whole book of WTF, I guess. It started to feel like Anna Karenina and I started wishing Nora would just shut up and do something.
She never did.
No confessions or confrontation. She goes on for pages and chapters about her barely contained fury, but there's nothing furious in her actions.
jasonfurman's review against another edition
4.0
The Woman Upstairs has the best opening of any recent novel I've read: "How angry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody wants to know about that. I’m a good girl, I’m a nice girl, I’m a straight-A, strait-laced, good daughter, good career girl, and I never stole anybody’s boyfriend and I never ran out on a girlfriend, and I put up with my parents’ shit and my brother’s shit, and I’m not a girl anyhow, I’m over forty fucking years old, and I’m good at my job and I’m great with kids and I held my mother’s hand when she died, after four years of holding her hand while she was dying, and I speak to my father every day on the telephone— every day, mind you, and what kind of weather do you have on your side of the river, because here it’s pretty gray and a bit muggy too? It was supposed to say “Great Artist” on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say “such a good teacher/ daughter/ friend” instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is F**K YOU ALL."
And lots of great, insightful writing along the way (e.g., "And yet, while I left their home feeling welcomed, even loved, it was a different, smaller sort of love than I’d wanted— not so much a glacier or a fireworks display as a light shawl against an evening breeze. Recognizably love, but useless in a gale.")
And a fabulously strong surprise ending.
The problem was that much of the middle--and by middle I mean the large majority of the book--did not grab me. The story is about a 40-something single woman third grade teacher who becomes obsessed with the family of a new student--individually with each of the mother, father and child and collectively with them as a unit. In the course of this she discovers just how angry she is and rediscovers her love of art and expression. All of this is fascinating, the archetype Messud creates will be a lasting contribution, but much of the book itself is about the relationship between the narrator's art and the art installation project being undertaken by the woman she is obsesses with, and much of this was disappointing and unengaging, especially when compared to the white hot opening.
And lots of great, insightful writing along the way (e.g., "And yet, while I left their home feeling welcomed, even loved, it was a different, smaller sort of love than I’d wanted— not so much a glacier or a fireworks display as a light shawl against an evening breeze. Recognizably love, but useless in a gale.")
And a fabulously strong surprise ending.
The problem was that much of the middle--and by middle I mean the large majority of the book--did not grab me. The story is about a 40-something single woman third grade teacher who becomes obsessed with the family of a new student--individually with each of the mother, father and child and collectively with them as a unit. In the course of this she discovers just how angry she is and rediscovers her love of art and expression. All of this is fascinating, the archetype Messud creates will be a lasting contribution, but much of the book itself is about the relationship between the narrator's art and the art installation project being undertaken by the woman she is obsesses with, and much of this was disappointing and unengaging, especially when compared to the white hot opening.
heather_g's review against another edition
2.0
Story about a school teacher who gave up her dreams of being an artist to care for her parents. Meets a family from Europe who live in US for a year & their lives intertwine. School teacher starts investing herself in the family & relationship with all three in the family. Ending was predictable.