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Rating: 
Summary: wonderful book
Review: Anshaw has written another delightful book. Fern is an extremely likeable character--her confusion about what to do with her life and how to separate from the mother she loves rings very true. Also perfectly depicted is the simultaneous pain and exhilaration her mother Nora felt when she realized she needed to live her life as a lesbian. Anshaw does a great job of showing us how Fern's life was upended by this event while also making Nora's choice totally understandable. I really enjoyed the book and read it in about three days. I didn't like it as much as Anshaw's "Seven Moves", though. "Seven Moves," a darker novel, is also set in Chicago and features a similar ambience. Anshaw borrows jokes and phrases from this earlier novel and puts them in "Lucky" which I found a bit disconcerting. But all three of Anshaw's books are wonderful reads.
Rating: 
Summary: Impersonations of sane
Review: Fern's relationship with her mother Nora has always been strained, ever since the messy divorce due to Nora's affairs with women. Nora has eventually settled down with Jeanne, but the tension between mother and daughter remains. Fern's best friend drops her baby into Fern's lap and slowly drifts from the picture, and Fern's most stable relationship is with her dog Lucky, but with the dog's health waning, this seems to be ending as well. And when Nora begins another affair, Fern is first to figure it out and leaps at the chance to judge her mother, but as events progress, she begins to realize her mother is human after all. And with Lucky dying, both mother and daughter come to better understandings about themselves and their relationship with each other. "Lucky in the Corner" is full of glorious complexities about us humans, and Anshaw has written this tale in a tidal mosaic, where episodes from the past and present interweave, blessing the reader with all aspects of these fascinating characters and leaving us with a sense of what family (especially those extended families of non-blood relatives) means.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent!!
Review: I found this book at my local library under new fiction and decided to try it out as I'm always looking for new authors to read. I'm so lucky that my fingers happened to pick up this book! What a treasure! Anshaw is a funny and sensitive writer. The only problem is that you've got to read this book slowly because there is so much to absorb! I ignored my husband and children for three days!! I can't wait to read her other two novels.......
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable, pedestrian, likable
Review: I knew from the beginning that somewhere in this book there would be a scene in a hospital and I was more or less correct. There is just nothing new here, unless maybe a reader still finds lesbian romance shocking. I've read too many mother-daughter relationship books, I guess, and books about young women finding themselves. The writing was very good.
Rating:
Summary: Sexy, funny, tender, wise -- I loved this book!
Review: Lucky in the Corner is one of those books you don't want to read too quickly, you want the pleasure to last. At its heart is one of the most complex and touching mother/daughter relationships I've ever come across. Add to that dangerous dykes, canasta-playing drags queens, dogs, uptight ex-wives, hot sex, teens in trouble, and the palpable presence of the city of Chicago. This book is a blast! Anshaw writes like a dream, she's often laugh aloud funny, and then she'll spin a sentence or metaphor that takes your breath away. For all the delicious bells and whistles, at its core this is a book about love and the tough choices it forces us all to make. A terrific ride with a payoff that moved me. Highest recommendation to my fellow readers.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious
Review: Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good book about Chicago, dogs, babies, transvestites, lesbians, teenagers, love and longing, but boy I sure did like this one. Carol Anshaw's way around an image is fresh and exquisite. --One of those "If I could only write like THAT" experiences. Add this to your summer list (and beyond). This one's a winner.
Rating:
Summary: Smart, funny and satisfying
Review: No one chronicles the nuances of relationships better than Carol Anshaw and this book is dense with insights into all sorts of love -- parental, conjugal, illicit, platonic, conditional, unconditional, straight, gay. Anshaw has stripped away the insulation covering the connections between her characters, and with the wiring exposed, sparks fly. With her characteristic dry wit, the author lays bare the feints and dodges we all use to get through the day. A bonus is her vivid descriptions of the ambiance of Chicago, site of most of the action. This book is fun, poignant, and very satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Brillinat, insightful and down to earth!
Review: This book captured my attention from the first page to the last. I wasn't able to put it down. My favorite chatacter was Harold/Dolores....I wish there were more about him. Anshaw is a brilliant writer, with a fresh and amazing outlook. Her book was both witty and made me laugh outloud. I'd definetly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Brillinat, insightful and down to earth!
Review: This book captured my attention from the first page to the last. I wasn't able to put it down. My favorite chatacter was Harold/Dolores....I wish there were more about him. Anshaw is a brilliant writer, with a fresh and amazing outlook. Her book was both witty and made me laugh outloud. I'd definetly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Multi-faceted beautiful novel.
Review: This book deals with a variety of subjects all in a beautiful way:
One character (the brother/uncle) cross-dresses... and this novel shows the way that two different generations of famly members deal with it.
The mother character is a lesbian... but came out about 14 years before the "present" in the book... and has a domestic partner - so this book isn't ABOUT her lesbianism... but rather just a fact that that the character's lives deal with.
The grandomther character is in show business... and the mother character has very strong feelings about that too.
The daughter character has a best friend that is a single twenty-year old mother...
There's a family dog... a very distant mother/daughter relationship... etc. This book really deals with all sorts family relationships in a beautiful way. With flashbacks, and each character narrating the different chapters... this book is pleasant to read... and really easy to relate to.
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