Rating: 
Summary: Schlocky
Review: Three people whose opinions I usually respect proved to me that our tastes can be uneven. I read this book expecting it to be as wonderful as my three educated and well-read friends said it was, but they were wrong, wrong, wrong! Strout's style is irritatingly cute and decorative, and her story of an anal retentive mother's relationship with her twisted daughter is ridiculous. I teach college literature courses, and I strive to teach my students the distinctions between formulaic pop writing and imaginative literature of lasting value. This novel belongs in the former category. If you've ever read Harlequin romances or such drivel, you'll recognize the same unrealistic, contrived dialogue here. Moreover the plot is pathetic, the storytelling style gossipy and insipid, and the problems unresolved. The teenage daughter has an affair with one of her high school teachers--something we hope a teacher will never do, but Strout never makes any political statements about it--not even metaphorically. I find this kind of storytelling pathetic and irresponsible. This book is real pop schlock, as valid as Danielle Steel and other stupid fiction. I find it sad but understandable that so many other reviewers here rated this book so high, but so did some of my friends. The funny thing is that when I asked them about it after I'd read it (true labor), one of them said she'd rated it among her top ten because there were so many extra copies of it in the bookstore she manages and she needed to sell them. Another said that she enjoyed it for escape and hoped I didn't think that she really thought it was literature. The last, well, she likes Alice Hoffman, another hack on my list, so if you like a sappy and predictable story with a dumb and icky sex scene between a high school teacher and his pupil, this is just the book for you. And if you can figure out what the cover image has to do with the junk inside, you deserve this book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Love Story
Review: The silver-tongued Mr. Robertson will have reason to gloat over my shoulder as I write, due to his successful, unpunished trespasses upon Amy, and also for my suspicion that he got away with something more gaspingly morbid in Shirley Falls that school year. Allow me to flatter this Mephisto for only a moment longer in order to borrow his favorite word Chiaroscuro to my own purposes; for Ms. Strout has deftly posed mother and daughter amid the passings of eye-blinding sunbursts and threatening cumulus, epiphanies and clouded judgments. Isabelle in fact is scuro personified, a chronic pessimist seeing suicide in sunshine, indelible stains in spring dandelions along with odor in the miracle of young menarche, and most understandably so. Her own bouyant youth darkly redrawn for its impetuous, romantic disaster has funneled flaxen haired Amy into his diabolical hands. Both women have Ms. Strout to thank for writing truth and courage in her margins waiting to be summoned by this mother's heart. Her novel is clearly a love story, though, not a murder mystery; even as Strout keeps an impeccable timeline of dates and events in the forefront which goad us into seeing clues. Clues they may be; but Debby Kay Dorne disappears for the body of the story, then is buried and mourned as a necessary warning for Amy and her mother. She is discovered only when both are ready to acknowledge that death may be a consequence of keeping secrets, a stinking death Amy must confront face to face. This is the part of the book I struggled with--becoming frustrated and infurated with Strout for not exposing Debby's killer, but instead honoring her in a way justice cannot--by redeeming Amy and teaching me that very importance. And what to finally make of the black line that vibrates between the two? It hums when a secret is remembered, alluded to, collided with, like a sensor over live wiring. Like an umbilicus, too, I've decided; and this one has grown diseased and necrotic with what runs through it, the lies that feed Amy and accustom her to Isabelle's own magnetism with married men. Other mothers and daughters may learn much from reading this together. I especially recommend to their discussion Strout's careful mapping of T.R.'s emotional and sexual encroachments. There is more to their hell and heavenly days, though, than what Mr. Robertson can reap. Illusion and fact are cast abundantly throughout Amy and Isabelle in precincts of their lives far removed from his watch, and with greater inertia. For instance, Protestant/Catholic dichotomy is always a relationship I follow with keen interest; and Strout amuses us with Isabelle's self-serious projections as a pious Congregationalist widow, chaste and uncontaminated, aloof in the wokpit with Catholic women whose frank sexual humor and bathroom badinage excuse her from insinuating into their long standing friendships. In fact, Strout allows Isabelle the short-lived luxury of seeming older and wiser than anyone else in her small world, especially if I add her eighteen years of spent girlhood to Amy's genuine sixteen and then discount Christ's thirty-three, who by the time He was her age, "had already gone bravely to the cross and hung there patiently with vinegar pressed to his lips". No one would have been more shocked than Isabelle to observe a screaming mother lunging in covetous mayhem at a daughter who had enjoyed sexual foray and still kept her virginity--no one perhaps, except a mother mocked for untimely surrender of her own. Yes, emotional displays offend Isabelle, even private ones in the depths of prayer she has observed among local Catholics who with galling vulgarity pray not only for what they need, but for what they want as well. No "outdoor" petition for Isabelle, especially not to front yard Madonnas! Yet Strout forgivingly reminds us, Protest and and Catholic alike, that prayer is prayer and that only the square and plagal anthems of her congregation's worship that Sunday morning, only the coming together of their grape juice communion and their emphatic, synchronized Amens were sufficient in force to guide mother and daughter across the most difficult and dangerous threshold there is, that from death by lies into the safety of truth. Isabelle is liberated from her past. And what a sweet thing it is, they would later agree, that Amy's newfound baby niece would share her Baptism. For Amy it was a Christening too, her sending forth on a straight path.As for Mr. Robertson, we remain on his trail.
Rating: 
Summary: More Than a Mother/Daughter Story!
Review: When I first started reading AMY AND ISABELLE, I feared it would turn out to be another CROOKED LITTLE HEART, with its insular, almost claustrophobic psychology, but I was dead-wrong. Strout's novel explores the difficulties and dangers a young woman and her mother face as both come of age, one literally and the other figuratively, during a stifling hot summer in New England. Teenage Amy's secret life has been discovered, and the revelation crushes her shy, prim mother Isabelle, who has a few secrets of her own. Despite the turmoil in the Goodrow household, they aren't the only ones with problems; the entire town is on edge as the stench from the stagnant river overcomes good sense and pushes people to their limits. Even lovable Fat Bev can't get her system moving. Stout has an amazing gift of making the ordinary seem extraordinary, of exposing the rawness buried inside her characters without stripping them of dignity, of gently leading her readers through the terrors of every day life. This novel feels real from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: A Slice of Life Keenly Carved
Review: I knew when I found myself reading certain sentences over several times that the author was a wordsmith of the highest order. At my book club last night I commented that she is as good as J.K. Rowling in picking exactly the right word all of the time. I also knew when I wanted to get up early to read this book and when I found myself thnking about it during the day. I am still thinking about it. I am a high school teacher and girls like Amy fill the halls. I am a mother of a 24 year old girl and know that certain dynamics ring true in the relationship of Isabelle and Amy. I have thankfully lived long enough to know that noone has it all together, and these characters and their problems are all too universal to some degree if one is honest. Some say it is a depressing book. I did not find it so. I found it an accurate slice of life, a comment on the human condition framed artfully and convincingly.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written and Emotional
Review: The words in this novel are so carefully choosen. I've never seen anything like it. It's really remarkable. I was so enchanted with this book and couldn't wait to turn the next page. I had to keep myself from looking ahead to see if I was right. This is a book that you want to take your time with. It's rich, full and very well written. The story is multi-dimentional and so very interesting. The relationship between mother and daughter is so complex all by itself, but the events that shape this novel add so many more issues and levels. It's really a wonderful and well written novel. I think a serious reader would completely enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Touching story
Review: I enjoyed this novel which accurately portrays the struggles of the mother/daughter relationship. Both sides are presented accurately, so you can sympathize with one or the other. The first chapter is awkwardly placed, because in the chain of events it belongs in the middle of the book. Other than that, this is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: sad and depressing
Review: I found this book not at all interesting. I thought I was goingto like it but it seemed to wander off into the boring realm anddefinately depressing. I did not understand what the point of the book was to show how awful it can be to have no husband live in an awful little town have some really sad friends. I could also have done without the sex chapters I think she could have left that out and we still would have got the picture of a young girl being taken advantage of by her teacher. It did not add to the value of this book. It could have been a Jerry Springer show. It also reminded me of a novel made for magazines were the ending is all nicely wrapped up. I will not wait with anticipation for her next book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written
Review: I often don't come across a book as beautifully written as "Amy and Isabelle", so it was a treat to do so. The descriptions of nature--though a bit excessive--were beautiful and vivid. The relationship between mother and daughter were achingly real. The dialogue worked. And the tapestry of outside stories made it seem so real--that there was a town outside of Amy and Isabelle and that their situation wasn't the only focus. It's a wonderful weekend read that should be read slowly and savored.
Rating:
Summary: Strout rocks!
Review: A&I is one of the best books ever written -- thoroughly absorbing, evoking all emotions. The complexities of mother-daughter love are so eloquently captured. The mother's memories of the little Amy are completely heart wrenching. Fully gratifying when mom confronts the teacher, revealing him for the insect that he is. Strout sets a new standard for contemporary fiction.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read this year
Review: I was immediately captivated by this book and had a hard time putting it down. The characters seemed so real and extraordinary in their "ordinary" dilemmas. My favorite character was Fat Bev. So much of Isabelle's acceptance of herself seemed to spring from Bev's compassion. There were times Amy would get on my nerves, but I had to keep reminding myself that she was just a teenager making immature decisions. Isabelle's search for sincere spirituality in a chaotic world made a lot of sense to me, and I was surprised and delighted by what ultimately became her prayer from the heart.
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