Rating: 
Summary: Mothers and Daughters
Review: Elizabeth Strout was successfully able to illustrate the relationship struggles between many mothers and daughters. The story is set in a seemily small and quiet town during an incredibly hot summer. Isabelle works in the town mill and desperately wants to fit in while Amy attends high school and wishes the same. Both remain distant from themselves and each other. Tensions build when Isabelle discovers a secret about Amy. This secret unlocked many things that Isabelle burried away about herself. Feeling betrayed and exposed, Isabelle must confront her daughter and eventually herself. In the confronting, each learns more about herself. Amy and Isabelle is a novel about coming full circle. The reader is taken along the road of struggle, bravery, and being true to one's self. Try this book for a bookclub as I am sure that it will evoke many feelings and a great discussion. What is more important and discussion worthy than the mother-daughter relationship?
Rating: 
Summary: Strong debut
Review: "Amy and Isabelle" ultimately is a fine novel, a great debut (I believe) for Elizabeth Strout. I will admit that while I never found the book boring, I also had a hard time reading it for any length of time until the end. I don't know why that was. I also found that she used too much foreshadowing. But these are minor complaints of an overall fine novel. The lead characters are beautifullly crafted, and I was impressed at how well Strout tied up the story; the last 50 pages provided a fitting end to this book. I look forward to more from Strout.
Rating: 
Summary: Story For The Heart
Review: Ever since I finished reading this book, I loved it. The plot is simple, a young mother in her 30's named Isabelle is raising her 15 year old daughter Amy alone in a little white house in the milltown of Shirley Falls. Other than a few daily words the two people are living in seperate lives with Isabelle being a shy person working as mill secretary everyday and who really doesn't have any friends. Amy lives through the dialy life of being a teenager hearing about girl-talk like news about her best friend's Stacy's boyfriend, etc. It all changes when Amy gets new math teacher, Mr. Robertson who makes a sexual advance on Amy but her mother would find out about later and of course furous. And from that through a series of relizations the mother has had about her own life, and life of her co-worker she knows she has set Amy on the wrong path and from those realization and a series of incidents they end up being open to each other (not giving ya details). Sweet in Simple, there is not a boring moment to reading the unfolding story about Amy & Isabelle and their life together. The way its written just simply kept me hooked since it wasn't boring but in a way stylish (toning down on a couple of obscence descriptions and words would be nice though). Everything that happens isn't too good to be true like those other Mother-Daughter books but flows just right like real life-one bite at a time. And most importantly, no matter who you are, you will come out reading this book a changed person, thinking about all the relationships ya had with anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Excellent!
Review: I was very impressed with this book. It was beautifully written with vivid descriptions that really paint a picture. The book keeps you guessing and intrigued. And during the early part of the story, the answers the reader is seeking are not necessarily predictable, but when discovered are realistic. I am a sucker for endings and I loved this one. It was appropriate, realistic and very neatly ended the story. Don't miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: A DEBUT TO BE ADMIRED AND SAVORED
Review: With Amy and Isabelle, a compellingly told mother/daughter tale, Elizabeth Strout makes her literary debut. We can only hope there are many encores for this first-time novelist who relates her story with resonant assurance. When this is coupled with Ms. Strout's balanced compassion for her characters and her sharp eye for the precise telling detail, Amy and Isabelle becomes a work to be admired and savored. Isabelle Goodrow and her 16-year-old daughter, Amy, make their home in a small New England mill town, Shirley Falls. This is a lugubrious community where in the hot summer that Amy turns 16 and comes to dislike the sight of her mother, the river is "just a dead brown snake of a thing lying flat through the center of town." Their rented house is in an area called the Basin, where many blue collar workers live. Isabelle, a tentative woman who wears her hair in a flat French twist and works in the office room of the mill, would never dream of buying that house because she "could not bear to stop thinking that her real life would happen somewhere else." Hers was a solitary existence, save for Amy. Isabelle is aloof and easily wounded, hurt when the deacon's wife disapproves of the leaves Isabelle had used to decorate the church altar. And, she is proper, always sitting toward the rear of the sanctuary as her mother had taught her to do. This propriety, blended with Isabelle's innate fastidiousness made Amy's illegitimacy even more of a shameful secret. Amy, too, was reserved. She had but one friend, Stacy, with whom she shared cigarettes, candy bars, and confidences during school lunch hours. A good student with a love for poetry, Amy had long golden hair and a slim well-developed body which made her all the more self-conscious. During classes she would duck her head down, hiding her face behind her hair. When a substitute teacher, Mr. Robertson, teases her saying, "Come on out, Amy Goodrow, everyone's been asking about you," there is little indication of how Amy will respond. Yet respond she does as first she is puzzled and then exultant in the burgeoning sexuality that Mr. Robertson coaxes from her. They are, of course, discovered. The forced awareness of Amy's duplicity and also of her emerging womanhood is a devastating blow to Isabelle, who feels she has spent her life for naught. In fact, Isabelle feels as though she has died: "Her 'life' went on. But she felt little connection to anything, except for the queasiness of panic and grief." And Amy, too, feels betrayed as she realizes that Mr. Robertson has used rather than cared for her. ".....ever since she found his number disconnected, found out that he had gone away; she could not stop her inner trembling." With Amy and Isabelle Ms. Strout has proven herself to be a considerably gifted writer. She has drawn vividly erotic scenes, and deftly limned some of life's most tender moments. There is every indication that she well understands and cares deeply for the characters she has created.
Rating:
Summary: At times disheartening and at times uplifting
Review: This book, about the relationship between a mother and daughter, brings you through contradictory feelings with each page. At one moment you dislike Isabelle for her actions, the next moment you pity and feel deeply for her. Strout does a wonderful job of bringing the reader into the story and creating an environment where we truly care for and about the characters. You want so badly for Isabelle and Amy to overcome their differences and realize the value the other could provide to the relationship. I enjoyed this book a great deal for the rollercoaster of feelings it created and for the wonderfully descriptive language Strout uses. I highly recommend it!
Rating: 
Summary: Unoriginal and unexceptional
Review: The fact that Elizabeth Strout's "Amy and Isabelle" was published to much acclaim was the only thing that kept me reading through the labored prose. The narration is slow and staid, and both titular characters are dull and indistinct. Isabelle is a disillusioned secretary raising a teenage daughter in a small Massachusetts mill town. Mother and daughter are both keeping secrets, some more damning than others. Isabelle is austere and dispassionate (Joan Allen is the obvious choice to play her in the movie version). Amy registers even less as a character. There are moving moments - such as when Isabelle discovers that she isn't more than a passing thought to the man she has loved for years, and there are moments of suspense, such as the truly frightening overtones of a missing girl in a neighboring town, but the central theme is one that has been explored many times before. Mothers wish better fates for their daughters than they were themselves handed, and will go to great lengths to push their daughters to make better choices than are desirable to girls of sixteen. This is true in life, but it has been explored in better novels. Strout shows promise, but I'm not sure I'll read a second book of hers.
Rating:
Summary: TORRID TEMPERATURES AND TORRID TEMPERAMENTS
Review: A page turner of a mom/daughter book. I really felt the heat of the summer and the boiling rages of the two main characters both of whom I rather disliked. The secondary characters, especially Fat Bev, were better developed than Amy and Isabelle. Stacy did not ring true for me at all. She was an exaggerated version of a rebellious teenager without any dimension. Her parents were laughable stereotypes. I could relate to Amy's infatuation with her math teacher as I had a crush on my math teacher in ninth grade! This story line was well depicted and believable up to a point that point being Robertson's exploitation of a young girl and his subsequent cruely to her. Yes, such behavior happens however in this story it comes on as too heavy handed and therefore does not have credibility. The Congregational Church ladies also seem like cutout figures; all of whom are depicted as snobs, and hypocrites. The author's physical descriptions are superb. The town, the factory office, Isabelle's house were great. Isabelle's change of personality near the end of the book came too rapidly. The reunion while heartwarming was hard to believe. In spite of these negatives I really cared about these people - I didn't always like them - but I was interested in learning the outcome. The author did a great job in capturing and sustaining my interest. It's a wonderful first book.
Rating:
Summary: Stark, honest, but a bit trite
Review: Amy and Isabelle is more than a typical mother daughter story. Isabelle (the mother) is lonely, bitter, hiding secrets, and in love with her boss. Amy, the daughter, is having her first sexual experiences and being a typical teenager. The story is horrifying in some aspects - Amy's teacher takes complete advantage of her, and Isabelle is jealous of Amy, instead of truly angry at the teacher. Both main characters are alone for most of the story, and finally reach out and make friends towards the end. The end was too neatly done, but it did leave the reader with hopes that Isabelle and Amy will be able to love each other as mother and daughter, instead of fear and resent each other.
Rating:
Summary: simple yet compelling
Review: this novel seems very simple - a mother, a daughter, a conflict. But it's anything but a trite version of an old story. Strout masterfully weaves subplots in, taking us inside others lives, and drawing it all back to Amy and Isabelle. Any teenage girl looking for her place in life, love and her family will relate to Amy and Isabelle is an accurate portrayal of a mother trying to take care of her daughter - and herself. Woven with interesting characters and stunning narration this novel is definately worth a read.
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