A review by milesjmoran
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
4.0
In the early morning, as the sky against her window was whitening and the birds increased their noise, Amy woke from where she had fallen asleep on the floor, her hand wet from saliva that had been seeping from her mouth. She sat up and almost immediately began to cry, and then stopped soon, because what she was feeling was so much worse than that; the tears, the crunching of her face, seemed futile and insignificant.
"Amy.' Her mother was standing in the doorway.
But it went no further. Amy did not look into her mother's face. She only glanced in her direction long enough to see that her mother had apparently spent all night in her clothes. And she didn't care. She didn't care what words might be stuck right now in her mother's throat; they were as futile as the puny tears she herself had just shed. She and her mother were stuck together, sick and exhausted with their stupid lives.
4.5
If any book could further hammer home the idiom 'Don't judge a book by its cover', it would be this one. The covers of Elizabeth Strout's novels never really appealed to me - they looked a bit twee, which isn't a bad thing but just didn't look like something I would enjoy. How wrong I was. This book has teeth, and there were many moments where it broke the skin and stunned me.
Amy & Isabelle is about a mother and daughter, who, when we first meet them, appear to have a strained relationship, an unspoken issue boiling beneath the seemingly apathetic surface, and Strout takes us back to months prior, revealing the events that led to their current situation. She also takes the time to pan out and show us the lives of various characters living in the small town of Shirley Falls, be they closely or distantly connected to the titular characters, such as a friend of Amy's, a co-worker of Isabelle's, a janitor at the school etc. In doing this, Strout contextualises Isabelle and Amy even further, deepening the reader's understanding of what their position is in this community and how they do/don't quite fit in.
It's an insightful novel that takes its time in unravelling its characters' psychologies, presenting them as nuanced, complex individuals that are equally sympathetic and problematic. Amy and Isabelle themselves are truly compelling where it would have been so easy to let them slip into caricatures, a typical single mother struggling to control her teenage daughter. With most debuts, even the best of them, you can see that they're figuring things out - they lack a fluidity that they will later accomplish and perfect, the strings are still visible, and it's clear that they're working out their own individual voice. With Strout, it was practically indecipherable. Is it perfect? I wouldn't say entirely...I felt that, in some places, it was a bit too dragged out and I would occasionally read scenes that felt like they would have been an ideal place to end the novel, and the last few pages were a bit too clean and sweet, and didn't entirely fit in with the overall tone of the book. However, I would say that's me looking for issues, and I really had to squint most of the time to find them.
The question now is whether I read the rest of Strout's works in order of publication because I will undoubtedly be reading all of her books.
"Amy.' Her mother was standing in the doorway.
But it went no further. Amy did not look into her mother's face. She only glanced in her direction long enough to see that her mother had apparently spent all night in her clothes. And she didn't care. She didn't care what words might be stuck right now in her mother's throat; they were as futile as the puny tears she herself had just shed. She and her mother were stuck together, sick and exhausted with their stupid lives.
4.5
If any book could further hammer home the idiom 'Don't judge a book by its cover', it would be this one. The covers of Elizabeth Strout's novels never really appealed to me - they looked a bit twee, which isn't a bad thing but just didn't look like something I would enjoy. How wrong I was. This book has teeth, and there were many moments where it broke the skin and stunned me.
Amy & Isabelle is about a mother and daughter, who, when we first meet them, appear to have a strained relationship, an unspoken issue boiling beneath the seemingly apathetic surface, and Strout takes us back to months prior, revealing the events that led to their current situation. She also takes the time to pan out and show us the lives of various characters living in the small town of Shirley Falls, be they closely or distantly connected to the titular characters, such as a friend of Amy's, a co-worker of Isabelle's, a janitor at the school etc. In doing this, Strout contextualises Isabelle and Amy even further, deepening the reader's understanding of what their position is in this community and how they do/don't quite fit in.
It's an insightful novel that takes its time in unravelling its characters' psychologies, presenting them as nuanced, complex individuals that are equally sympathetic and problematic. Amy and Isabelle themselves are truly compelling where it would have been so easy to let them slip into caricatures, a typical single mother struggling to control her teenage daughter. With most debuts, even the best of them, you can see that they're figuring things out - they lack a fluidity that they will later accomplish and perfect, the strings are still visible, and it's clear that they're working out their own individual voice. With Strout, it was practically indecipherable. Is it perfect? I wouldn't say entirely...I felt that, in some places, it was a bit too dragged out and I would occasionally read scenes that felt like they would have been an ideal place to end the novel, and the last few pages were a bit too clean and sweet, and didn't entirely fit in with the overall tone of the book. However, I would say that's me looking for issues, and I really had to squint most of the time to find them.
The question now is whether I read the rest of Strout's works in order of publication because I will undoubtedly be reading all of her books.