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A powerful and redemptive novel of love and family, from the author of the bestselling Blue Shoe, Grace (Eventually), and Operating Instructions. Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences. This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.
Throughout this admirable novel, Lamott's observations are pitch perfect—likably, even brutally unsentimental, not just about parental hopes and anxieties but about the particular and touching fragility of simply being a teenager. I blushed at the description of the mother, seen through her daughter's eyes…And you ache with the truth of Elizabeth's visceral longing for her strong, beautiful, frightening daughter…Lamott nearly always tempers her understandable evangelism with honesty and humor. Laughter redeems this book, and so does the fact that it's ultimately not just a novel about deception and drugs but about the great big bloody battle of love and sorrow that is parenthood.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Carol Gardiner
reviewed Imperfect Birds on March 23, 2010
Imperfect Birds
Anne Lamott ends her trilogy about a mother-daughter relationship using horrible (and often vulgar) cliches about motherhood, marriage, teenagers, friendship, and faith. Her self-indulgence knows no bounds. Ironically, she sees herself as somehow different (and above) her Marin county community that is portrayed in this "fictional novel." At one point, she writes about the "smug" residents of Marin county and I could not help but yell out dude, you are seriously projecting!
Unbelievably, at the end of this novel/soapbox (Oprah rip-off "This is what I know" ala Anne Lamott) Lamott thanks her editors- one is said to be GREAT and the other TOUGH and PROFOUND. Such thanks were misguided.
As an example, why would an editor or author think anyone wants to hear about James' quiet farts?
Twice.
Yes, twice.
(BTW, readers, it as all part of the marital soup. Also, the sex credit- phew, now "Elizabeth" (Anne Lamott?) gets a week off from fucking her husband!).
What type of friends (do you know that) engage in this type of dialogue:
James :: Please, Elizabeth? (he wants to have sex)
Elizabeth :: I'm exhausted, I have bad breath, and my vagina smells.
WTF?!
Ick.
Readers also get to hear how both women leak urine if they laugh or cough too hard. In fact, Elizabeth had to wear napkins all the time now, and was not even fifty.
More, Elizabeth has a hammertoe and gigantic corns. Lank has a torn rotator cuff and James had two skin cancers removed from his widening bald spot.
Rae whose husband is also balding coos like a lap dancer about how soft and sexy Lank's bald spot is.
coos. like. a. lap. dancer.
Rosie and her BFF's touch and hang all over one another like lesbians.
The family dog is described as a mellow companion who looks Hasidic and thoughtful.
???
Also, ugly-adorable. Except for the penis. That red lipsticky thing. James says the furry outside thing isn't the penis- it's a codpiece. It's just his little underpants.
At one point, Rosie feels like a speck of protoplasm on a stick under the sky.
Huh?
So... she feels like a speck of a cell on a stick under the sky?
I can't even.
Sadly, I could continue on (and on).
Alas, a friend has told me to "STOP!"
Sheesh. Maybe her vagina smells.
See? Gross.
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