A review by lydiature_
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
3.5
I randomly found this tiny book on Pangobooks for super cheap and i thought “why not?” while i didn’t feel emotionally connected to any of the characters nor the plot, i do appreciate moore’s detailed exploration of female friendship— specifically young girls. sometimes books like these are kind of tricky. i often find myself unconvinced that the friends are actually friends—there’s no magic in their relationship, no natural banter, etc. but this pleasantly surprised me. i saw (and felt) the natural friendship between berie and sils. i loved how vivid it was; i could imagine them as young teenage girls just experiencing adolescence & figuring out their lives on their own.
what didn’t work for me personally was Adult berie. i don’t think the story should’ve been told from an older version of bernie when she’s married, more experienced. it took away from the magic of the story. because of this, the story jumped around too much & i (a lot of times) felt annoyed whenever adult berie would come out of nowhere and talk about daniel. i didn’t care about her as an adult nor her husband. i wanted more about young bernie and her friendship with sils.
this is a good summer read though!
what didn’t work for me personally was Adult berie. i don’t think the story should’ve been told from an older version of bernie when she’s married, more experienced. it took away from the magic of the story. because of this, the story jumped around too much & i (a lot of times) felt annoyed whenever adult berie would come out of nowhere and talk about daniel. i didn’t care about her as an adult nor her husband. i wanted more about young bernie and her friendship with sils.
this is a good summer read though!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment
Minor: Abortion