Rating: 
Summary: Refreshingly open and forward!
Review: Elizabeth Strout has written a masterpiece here. A friend gave me "Amy and Isabelle" shortly after I was finally able to come to terms with myself, my past and come out about all of it - at 31. My first thought, was "ugh, another mother-daughter story from another well-meaning friend", but Strout managed to present the story of a mother and daughter coming to terms with themselves and each other without developing suffocating tunnel vision or a soapbox.This tale is always open with many interwoven avenues like a road map. The reader gets a broad perspective of the various individuals with whom Amy and Isabelle Goodrow interact on a daily basis, rather than just being limited to Amy and Isabelle themselves like so many other mother/daughter reads tend to do somewhere after page 1. There's Avery, Fat Bev, Dottie Brown, Stacy, Mr. Robertson, and a number of others rounding out the picture. We really get to see the clearest measure of Amy and Isabelle -- of how they measure themselves, how they believe they are measured, and how they are measured in reality -- through these other characters. In fact, what is measured in the end is how we view ourselves as [reader] in light of those with whom we interact. Both Amy and Isabelle find unexpected strength when they each quit trying to be something they are not, and allow themselves to become human, in Shirley Falls, where Isabelle has for many years thought that 'being human' was probably the worst possible thing to do. The characters are all so familiar that one can't help but put themselves into at least one pair of shoes in this book. Strout has achieved a familiar, three dimensional, fast and engaging style that keeps you reading until the book runs out...
| 
