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Summary: Almighty Anne
Review: I lenjoyed Ms. Lamott's books more when she didn't preach to me. "All New People" and "Rosie" were great novels and, although they may have served as religious channels for the author, they never felt pushy. "Blue Shoes" does not seem to be about a particular character but instead serves as a personal preaching card for the author. What a disappointment to loose such a gifted writer to the zombie treading world of the born-again Christians.
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Summary: Annie's done it again, only better...
Review: I have been a big fan of Anne Lamott since "Hard Laughter" was published more than twenty years ago, and own all of her books. It is an intoxicating joy to watch such a gifted writer continue to just get better and better. "Blue Shoe" touches with such a sure hand on every kind of human issue: including being a parent, being a child, being an adult who craves love even when it isn't good for you, wanting to deconstruct childhood secrets, and handling the mixed blessing of getting answers to questions that you thought that you wanted to resolve.If you already know Anne's work, go for it. If she's new to you, go for it. You'll be, I hope, glad, stunned, a little breathless at the book's gratifying conclusion.
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Summary: Anne Lamott is a Literary Genius
Review: Anne Lamott just seems to have a special talent for taking something we have always felt but didn't know it, and putting it into words. This book is yet another example of that gift. Mattie, like all of Lamott's characters, is so lovable, because she is REAL. I found myself constantly saying, "I feel like that too! I just didn't know it!" I would recommend this book just as much as I would recommend any of Anne Lamott's books. Anyone who has or ever has had feelings and enjoys books of any kind needs to read this. I waited for this book for so long, and I was not let down!!
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Summary: Vintage Lamott
Review: Just when you think that Anne could not possibly get another story from her life, here comes "Blue Shoe". I loved every single inspiring word of this funny, uplifting, starkly honest, tale of the life of Mattie, a quirky divorcee/everywoman dealing with 2 children, an ailing mother, a dying pet, a budding romance with a married (but soon to be divorced) friend and her father's shady past....Anne weaves it all together into a touching tapestry of a story that is guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and nod your head in understanding. Thanks for another great novel, Anne!!!!!!!!
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Summary: Lamott Enchants Again
Review: I waited with great anticipation for this new book of Lamott's and was not disappointed, finding it both enchanting and full of her particular brand of wisdom. I thought her Salon essays and "Traveling Mercies" were brilliant and found much of their material incorporated in this novel. The book is about the "mystery of family and the possibility of love" and contains Lamott's own particular brand of philosophizing. When I finished, I felt like I had been talking with a friend about all the family concerns facing women in today's world. Lamott makes the reader see the world in a different way and feel more at peace with where we happen to be. She expands and expounds, with humor, tenderness, and love, on the smallest incidents and finds new meaning in them. She finds lessons everywhere and deals with life with bold honesty and down-to-earth spirituality. For example: "When God is going to do something wonderful, it starts with something hard, and when God is going to do something exquisite, She starts with an impossibility." "Blue Shoe" gives us several years in 37-year-old Mattie Ryder's disorderly life, a life that is typical of those about whom Lamott writes. Once again, the setting is on the coast of Marin County, where the author herself lives. Mattie is newly divorced at the beginning, coping with all the traumas associated with still wanting her unfaithful ex-husband, moving back to her childhood home, and trying to keep body and soul together. During these years, Mattie finds new loves, deals with her mother's increasing confusion, and raises her young son and daughter with love and laughter. All the oddball characters, also typical of Lamott, somehow gracefully fit into this story and help Mattie cope, along with a strong reliance on God. The little blue shoe is the catalyst which leads Mattie and her brother to find out more than they really want to know about their family, whose past has been glossed over by their mother. The tangled skeins of their parents marriage are slowly revealed. Mattie carries the blue shoe as a kind of good- luck charm, which gives her comfort as some difficult truths come to light. Mattie seems to float along rather than confronting her problems head on, yet somehow, for her, this approach works and keeps her from sinking into depression as she accepts life as it is rather than fighting it. Mattie says "It was not facing what life dealt that made you crazy, but rather trying to set life straight where it was unstraightenable." This is a re-phrasing of the AA prayer with which the author is very familiar, I am sure. She has never hidden her addictions nor her continuing recovery. I think that this is a lesson that would allow many of us to be less stressed - trying to change what cannot be changed is a sure way to create stress in one's life! Lamott's writing shines and her spiritual reflection is given full rein when she writes about Mattie's everyday worries: caring for an aging mother; attempting to get a young daughter to stop biting her nails; getting rid of the rats in the walls of her house; dealing with her son's temper. This lovely book moves slowly through Mattie's post-divorce years and follows her gradual emotional recovery, impeded somewhat by her search for the truth about her family. During this time, many people inhabit her life, and Lamott shows us that family does not just consist of those with whom we have a blood relation, but also includes those whom we love and need on a daily basis.
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Summary: A Terrible Disappointment....Kick This Shoe to the Curb
Review: This book was terrible. There are no other words to describe it. The plot was vapid and boring, the characters were weak and flimsy, and I finished this book thinking that I just wasted several hours of my life reading it. I have never read this author before, but I can assure the general public I will never read her works again. I just wish I could get my money back, but unfortunately it isn't even worth the time to try and sell it for .78 cents on Amazon.
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Summary: Who cares?
Review: I am a big fan of Anne Lamott. Her books Traveling Mercies and Bird By Bird are two of my favorites. It was out of loyalty to her that I stuck this book out even though I couldn't wait for it to be over. It's not a terrible book, it's just terribly blah. There are some shocking things that the characters do but the way it's written, it's like "yeah? So what?" Like Mattie having sex with her ex-husband when he's newly remarried and when he has a new baby. The readers could have been brought to a place of disgust or deep insight into Mattie's character through this revelation. But for me it was written so matter-of-factly it was more like, ho-hum, so what? This is the way the whole book is.
I never developed any gut understanding of Mattie's psyche. The revelations about her father could have been devastating and supposedly Mattie was devastated some of the time, but it just didn't come through. I couldn't feel what Mattie was feeling.
Seems to me, Mattie had a charmed life. Yes, her father was a [...] in a way and watching your mother deteriorate is a bummer. But she's got a house for free, she's surrounded by really good friends who stick by her, he has jobs that she likes and are apparently enough to pay the bills, she's got a good relationship with her ex and even his new wife, she's got good kids who she loves, her mother finds a devoted friend who apparently has no flaws at all, has a great relationship with her brother and sister-in-law, the man she falls in love with loves her back, etc etc. The relationships between characters seemed so perfect most of the time, even the fights were tidy. So why so much angst? What's the point of the story? Did she grow by the end of the book? Didn't seem like it to me.
I wish I could have liked this book more.
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Summary: My First Anne Lamott--and I Liked It
Review: "Blue Shoe" is my first Anne Lamott, though my pastor has been quoting her other books for years. Now I know why. Lamott's characters are not perfect--far from it. But Lamott has an almost perfect eye for capturing them and their moments. I too could kick Mattie for sleeping with her ex-husband, but having had an ex-husband, I understand the impulse. It wasn't about sex, though Mattie thought it was. It was about revenge, and, contradictorily, about wanting him back. Not pretty emotions, but very human, and part of her letting go of him. And letting go can take a very long time. As for her falling for Daniel when he was still married to Pauline, well, there are degrees of married, too. Daniel was looking for strength to leave a woman whose own strength bound him in ways good for neither.
The relationships at the heart of this book of relationships, so many that they might have spiraled out control in hands less skilled, are those in the original family of Alfred and Isa and their children Mattie and Al. As is always the case, today's relationships between Isa and her children are based on those of Mattie and Al's childhood, when their parents were important people in the community, but largely absent to their children. The blue shoe they find in their father's old car (the one plot device that seems a bit forced--why would that car still exist, and show up in their neighborhood?) leads them on a trip of discovery that at first is terribly painful and then liberating. The best-drawn relationship in the book, I thought, is the one between Mattie and her mother Isa, as the always-together Isa slips into dementia and their roles reverse.
At its root, this is an incredibly spiritual book. Mattie goes through trials, some of her own making, finds peace and hope in God and the church and the community of her friends and family, grows and changes, and ultimately celebrates. I'll read more Anne Lamott.
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Summary: Who is she kidding?
Review: Who is she--by this I mean both Anne Lamott and her central character Mattie--kidding? Mattie is a mess, no matter how "endearingly," who at the end has little to redeem her--her selfishness and blindness are overwhelming. She's sleeping with her ex-husband, who has re-married and whose new wife is expecting. And she is coveting another woman's husband. No matter how disagreeable the "other women" may be, there is no excuse for Mattie's behavior, nor her lack of honesty and candor. And she seems incapable of doing anything short of praying--and I'm a great believer in prayer. I usually enjoy Anne Lamott tremendously, and her characters equally--especially because of their flaws and their faith. But I found Blue Shoe to ask too much, even of Lamott's faithful.
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Summary: Same old, same old
Review: If you've read Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions or Traveling Mercies, don't bother with this one. Anne has simply recycled her same old material, giving the characters new names. She can be so funny and droll, I'd just love to see her branch out and try something new, stretch herself, maybe even pick a different setting for a change. Would not recommend.
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