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A review by gohawks
You or Someone Like You by Chandler Burr
5.0
I am writing this review about a year and a half after finishing the book. I just started thinking about it again today, and I wanted to read it again. This book had many flaws, and it is not one that I would usually give 5 stars. However, it didn't leave me for almost a month after reading it. I wanted many people I knew to read it too. (I would later re-think recommending it to some because I was not ready to have the nearly unavoidable discussions that would follow.) This is a book that I dismissed, loved and wrestled with throughout. But it is a book that I can't seem to forget, and that alone makes it high on my list.
I never go into plot because anyone can read the summary. But the author draws the book lover in with a plot of a wife of a Hollywood exec starting a book club for Hollywood producers and directors. There is a lot of Hollywood name dropping with J.J. Abrams and others. And this is the candy coating of the novel. You mean we get to read about book clubs and movies? Sign me up. Then THE BIG THEME is revealed. The novel ponders the question of religion - Judaism, in particular - and what it means to be part of a religion versus being part of a people or ethnic group. How do we choose religion or spirituality and how is it chosen for us? Not to say the book answers these, but it ponders them. It was clear that it was very personal to the author who discloses somewhere within the books pages that it was inspired by an event that happened to him. However, this should not make it any more important that complete fiction. Along the way, a few of the characters act improbably at times and the writing can suggest a certain pretentiousness at first, but the greatness of this book is in the questions it raises.
I never go into plot because anyone can read the summary. But the author draws the book lover in with a plot of a wife of a Hollywood exec starting a book club for Hollywood producers and directors. There is a lot of Hollywood name dropping with J.J. Abrams and others. And this is the candy coating of the novel. You mean we get to read about book clubs and movies? Sign me up. Then THE BIG THEME is revealed. The novel ponders the question of religion - Judaism, in particular - and what it means to be part of a religion versus being part of a people or ethnic group. How do we choose religion or spirituality and how is it chosen for us? Not to say the book answers these, but it ponders them. It was clear that it was very personal to the author who discloses somewhere within the books pages that it was inspired by an event that happened to him. However, this should not make it any more important that complete fiction. Along the way, a few of the characters act improbably at times and the writing can suggest a certain pretentiousness at first, but the greatness of this book is in the questions it raises.