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A review by maedo
Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger
2.0
The best story in this collection is its first, "Lucky Girls," about a young white American expatriate in India deciding if she wants to stay in her adopted country after the death of her married lover, for whom she moved in the first place. The idea of defining what makes a place feel like home is personally appealing, especially as I contemplate making a drastic change of my own.
But everything after "Lucky Girls" feels too similar - only one of the five stories in the collection is set at any length in America, yet all are written from the perspective of relatively prosperous white Americans who seem to be able to afford multiple international moves on a whim. There is rarely a feeling of real narrative tension that comes from conflicts that can't be resolved, and when the conflict of the story is of the unresolvable sort - as in "Outside the Eastern Gate," - it doesn't feel amplified enough.
But everything after "Lucky Girls" feels too similar - only one of the five stories in the collection is set at any length in America, yet all are written from the perspective of relatively prosperous white Americans who seem to be able to afford multiple international moves on a whim. There is rarely a feeling of real narrative tension that comes from conflicts that can't be resolved, and when the conflict of the story is of the unresolvable sort - as in "Outside the Eastern Gate," - it doesn't feel amplified enough.