A review by wendoxford
Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout
2.0
As a longstanding Strout fan. I have loved all her books, to date. I felt underwhelmed by this novel.
I enjoyed being back with my "familiars" and slipped into the family with great ease. However, this is a pandemic book and I found it lacking, I suspect because of this. Normally the ramblings, insights, conversations of her cast make me pause and consider the slight yet hugely informative insights. I felt that, being so close to the pandemic, Trump, Capitol riots that there was nothing of the depths of an active mind that was surprising or new to me in her ponderings. Whether this is as a result of us having read swathes of news and ingested it ad nauseum ourselves, or whether Strout was aiming to capture the moment, I am unsure. I found myself (for the first time) irritated by Lucy (I always found William insufferable!), instead of emotional intelligence I found silliness.
Having said that, I did feel full immersion in the writing and how lockdown was for this family. I loved the pop up characters from other novels and I enjoyed the storylines involving her daughters and her siblings which oozed the multi-dimensions of previous Lucy books. I hope she comes back with more quirkiness, and ideally with William elsewhere!
I enjoyed being back with my "familiars" and slipped into the family with great ease. However, this is a pandemic book and I found it lacking, I suspect because of this. Normally the ramblings, insights, conversations of her cast make me pause and consider the slight yet hugely informative insights. I felt that, being so close to the pandemic, Trump, Capitol riots that there was nothing of the depths of an active mind that was surprising or new to me in her ponderings. Whether this is as a result of us having read swathes of news and ingested it ad nauseum ourselves, or whether Strout was aiming to capture the moment, I am unsure. I found myself (for the first time) irritated by Lucy (I always found William insufferable!), instead of emotional intelligence I found silliness.
Having said that, I did feel full immersion in the writing and how lockdown was for this family. I loved the pop up characters from other novels and I enjoyed the storylines involving her daughters and her siblings which oozed the multi-dimensions of previous Lucy books. I hope she comes back with more quirkiness, and ideally with William elsewhere!