Like Normal People

Rating:
Summary: I still remember them so clearly...
Review: I'm not going to tell you about plot, because you can read that above. I just want to tell you my personal experience with this book...

I read Like Normal People several months ago, in the hallway of my high school during lunch hour over several days. This information is important because it means that I probably did not give the book my full attention. My reading of it was broken up, interrupted by people coming to look at my math homework, talk to me about the history lecture, or tell me about their latest crush.

And yet...most books I read in this fashion are enjoyed at the time but soon slip away until I can barely remember them. (Yes, I read Dead Souls. There was a guy in it...and he did something, I think.) But Like Normal People was different. Even now I could tell you every detail of the plot. I could tell you about each character, recalling their names and personality quirks. And that's no small accomplishment.

This is Karen Bender's first novel, meaning that I was prepared to be forgiving of it. I didn't have to be. This novel was better than many author's second or even tenth novels. It passed the test of lunch hour reading...simply unforgettable.

Rating:
Summary: This author hasn't developed a polished style (yet)
Review: Karen Bender's message is a worthy and necessary one - What do people who are not as 'normal' as you and I want? Nothing less and nothing more than what the rest of the world wants; love, acceptance, a place of their own, to be happy... The author just didn't deliver on breathing life into her characters. The writing does have a few moments of magic though, and I'll give Bender's next book, when she writes it, a chance.

Rating:
Summary: like normal people
Review: Late 1970's, in Los Angelous, California.Ella, mother of Lena, which is mentally challenged and lives in a home for the handicap. Lena sets a fire to the room; Ella is talking to Mrs. Lowenstein, director of the home where Lena lives, about Lena setting the fire. Shelley, who is Lena's niece, decides to take off on a bus not knowing their destination. Lena was acting spastic, like she had never been out alone and this frightens Shelly. There was not much said between the two on the bus, Lena and Shelley were surrounded by their thoughts.
Meanwhile, Ella in Lena's room finds things that Lena has taken from each family member and starts regressing to her own childhood. Ella was the daughter of a Russian immigrant, which they were Jewish, living in Boston around the 1920's.
Ella taunted by her older sister, which never liked her because of their father's fondness of Ella. Growing up Ella becomes a sales person; this is when Ella meets Lou, Lena's father, which comes from a family of money with dreams of moving to California. Lou and Ella get married and move to California where Lou dreamed of living.
During this time Lena and Shelley get off the bus, Lena seeing the sign across the street that reminded Lena of the store near the home where she stayed. Having no money, Lena has away of borrowing things, which at this time Shelley realizes that Lena is a thief, by almost getting caught.
Going back to when Ella remembered when Lena was diagnosed as being mentally challenged, due to a birth injury. This put a strain on Lou and Ella's marriage. For days Ella laid in bed thinking of how the first couple of years had been. Lou had opened a shoe store during this time, and Lou sometimes thinks that he is not worthy enough to have Ella.
Getting back to Lena and Shelley, they steal the stuff from the store and head for the beach, laughing about them getting away with doing this. Meanwhile Lena explaining to Shelley these bad actions and how Lena had learned to do this. Still laughing about their actions while wandering around the beach, the whole time reflecting back in their lives.
Lena, along with her aunt goes to the good will store and Lena meets Bob, which eventually get married. Bob and Lena are put in a home by Ella, where Bob and Lena were the youngest there. Shelley does visit with Bob and Lena, where they enjoy the recreations with Bob and Lena. Which their thoughts being in a fantasy world of dreams, that are not realistic.
Vivian, which is Shelley's mother. Lena and Vivian had a close relationship. Other children would push Lena away, and Vivian wouldn't let the children exclude Lena. Vivian and Lena have closeness; Vivian looked up to Lena, her older sister. Lena became jealous and controlling of Vivian, like when they were children.
Ella had to separate Lena and Vivian, Lena was to controlling, so Vivian would go to work with Lou at the shoe store. Vivian would go upstairs to the dance studio when she got bored and just watch. Vivian eventually started attending these dance classes. Ella visits Vivian at the home where Vivian is staying. Vivian gets caught by Ella experiencing sexual desires with a neighborhood child. Ella talks to Vivian about some rules about showing your body to other people.
Lena graduates from high school; Lena has sex with Bob not knowing what she is experiencing. Lena goes home bleeding, so Ella takes Lena to the restroom and explains to Lena that she has a had intercourse, that's when Bob and Lena decide to get married.
Vivian and Mel, who are Shelley's parents, are aware that Shelley and Lena are gone, so Vivian and Mel decide to call the police. That evening Shelley calls and tells her parents that she is alright.Ella is very relieved that the girls were alright.
In conclusion, Ella realizes the world is not bad and can't harm anyone, but Ella also realizes that they can be loved. The beach was silent and all Ella can say is that she knows what her name is. Ella had gotten tired and rested on the bench at the beach; Ella would set and admire all the things around her. The four of them are finally together and there was so much love and caring between all of them. Ella wishes she could stay with the girls, but soon Ella knew she was going to die and she wouldn't always be there for the girls. All Ella wanted was for the girls to have a "normal" life, like everyone else.

Rating:
Summary: moving, empathetic and wise account of family love and pain
Review: Memorable and searing, crushing and uplifting, messy and profound, Karen Bender's debut novel, "Like Normal People," grabs our attention, mesmerizes us with its incandescent language and imagery, and instructs us to the marvelous, unpredictable and transcendent need for familial love. Its three featured characters deal with profound flaws and disabilities; their enduring quest for understanding, acceptance and place bind them to us. Each protagonist illuminates a family's history; the matriarch, eldest daughter and youngest daughter's daughter bind themselves to each other in a lattice of pain, confusion and ultimate understanding. Singularly and collectively, their lives are messy, unfocused, but true. Like normal people, Ella, Lena and Shelley must confront their lives, and with the resources available to each, accept themselves and learn to cherish each other.

Karen Bender accomplishes these tasks in a telescopic fashion. The retarded Lena has bolted from her assisted living residenced with Shelley; shocked and bewildered, the elderly Ella enlists her other daughter Vivien (Shelley's mother) to help her find them. Their search involves Ella's painstaking review of her life. This cross-cutting, between the past and present, invigorates the narrative and gives depth to brilliant characterizations.

Ella has given her life to her now adult retarded daughter. Possessed with the enormous responsibility of managing a child's life for the rest of her life has both strengthened and weakened Ella. Devotion to her husband has been supplanted by commitment to her needy child. The regular rules of parenting are suspended; Lena's differences become a cruel wedge between Ella and the rest of the world. Even the birth of a "normal" second child, Vivien (whose creative brilliance is balanced by her prescient knowledge that she must be bound by compassion to her older sister), scares Ella that hoping for the future is allowed. This matriarch's strength is shadowed by her ambivalence; when may Ella feel free, independent, autonomous.

Lena presents a different challenge. Ms. Bender has invested her with authentic feelings, but bound those emotions in a retarded mind. Surging with needs, attempting to realize some joy and peace in a fragmented, limited existence, Lena's marriage to Bob serves as the crucible through which the three protagonists come fully alive to each other. Lena is a triumph. Her anguish, her loneliness and her frustrations render her believable and lamentable. Her breakthrough understandings may seem small to "normal people," but emerge as enormous in her self-identity.

The tormented Shelley, gripped by a compulsive need to count in multiples of three, symbolizes the possibilities, anxieties and confusions of early adolescence. Her budding senses of social isolation and incipient sexuality have no outlet other than an intense relationship with her retarded aunt Lena and Lena's retarded husband, Bob. This relationship ultimately results in tragic consequences, and Shelley's guilt and powerlessness (both in accepting responsibility and not being able to alter the past) both energize and immobilize.

As the three characters struggle with their inner torment, they come to separate epiphanies. Ms. Bender's final chapters are elegantly written and extremely moving. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio," her three protagonists truly come alive to each other. As Ella, Lena and Shelley learn the truths each needs to continue living, their lives simultaneously expand and contract. Time stops but vision enlarges. This seeming contradiction reinforces the central theme of the novel, that even the best-planned lives of normal people are a mess, that only by opening ourselves to the secrets of our soul and the hidden anguish of our hearts do we become truly human. "Like Normal People" will remain in the reader's consciousness long after the last page is read.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed-Up Metaphors
Review: Only in the third chapter, I'm struggling to read it through the annoying metaphors that seem to be there without purpose. For example, in surveying the room Lena burnt, Ella notices the curtains that remind her of sea creatures .. WHY? Then she moves on. And in the next few sentences, she throws in another metaphor with no relation to the previous one. And so on... Despite the lack of "flow", the characters are original and interesting.

Rating:
Summary: A beautifully rendered first novel
Review: Proving that a novel can be beautifully written and accessible to a mass audience, Karen Bender's deceptively simple story, focusing on three generations in the same family, each searching for what is "normal," is a triumph of storytelling and craft.

Not many first novelists can manage the shifts in voice that Bender does, from the 80-something Ella to the 12-year-old Shelly, she depicts realistically and empathetically, the lives of these women who rise to the occasion.

Thoughtful, tender, and moving. Karen Bender is already approaching a mastery of her craft.

Rating:
Summary: Moving and sweet
Review: So many people have written so much about this book, I am almost hestitant to write a review, since I'd be repeating what everyone else said. The characters, particularly the three main ones, and Bob, were well drawn and believable. In fact, my biggest reason for recommending the book would be because the characters with developmental disabilities, Lena and Bob, were so realistically portrayed. I had an older sister with mental retardation, and I could see her and others I knew with mental retardation doing the kinds of things Lena and Bob did. I do wish Vivien had been fleshed out more. I would like to have seen in more detail how she dealt with having a sister with mental retardation, especially as she began dating, and how she related to her parents as the "normal" daughter. I think the few problems Vivien encountered growing up with a handicapped sister were glossed over

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Surprise
Review: This book came to my attention while I was a book review editor at a disability magazine, and I remember enjoying the novel because it depicted people with disabilities so sensitively and realistically. I've read some of the other reviews and had no idea it had become a bestseller. Good for her if it has. I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Like Normal People
Review: This book was beautifully written and I can't believe these accusations of mixed-up metaphors. The author has not wasted a word as she has produced one or the more lovely and profound character studies I have ever read. To lose any bit of this book would detract signifigantly from the whole. There are stretches of prose that feature gorgeous metaphors and then there are stretches that feature only dialogue, or stunning detail, or whatever tone is called for at the moment. I recommend this book without reservation for anybody who enjoys a beautiful story, beuatifully told.

Rating:
Summary: And even an ending...
Review: This is a terrific book. Bender chooses to focus her story on those family members whose lives, in some fashion, revolve around Lena, rather than on Lena herself. This works brilliantly: most readers, after all, are going to identify themselves as "normal people." It's very easy to visualize ourselves living a life like Ella's, Lou's, Shelley's, Vivien's, with a loved one who presents challenges such as those presented by Lena. Yet Lena too seems "normal" in many ways: she is curious, lively, loving, jealous. The book catches us in its narrative movement and reading on becomes irresistible, but unlike lightweight plot-driven fiction, this one is also well written. Some critics can find an infelicitous phrase here and there, but most readers are more likely to be struck by the freshness of the prose. And the book ends in an utterly satisfying way too! Not with a major climax, but with a reasonable--and fitting--finale. Book groups ought to read this novel; I hope mine will.