pages: 259
ISBN: 978-0-316-40343-6
read: 3/14-20/2017
rating: 1// i didn't like it 2// it was okay 3// i liked it
4//i really liked it 5// it was amazing 6// i loved it
"Smell the soup, cool the soup."
-Timby pg 48
SYNOPSIS
Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.
MY THOUGHTS
what in the....i don't even know.
man! i loved Bernadette so maybe i was sorta expecting to be on the same boat with this book. i mean, not too similar but at least in a boat near by. (i dont even know what that means. sorry!)
i don't know. considering i flagged the crap out of it, it was VERY hard for me to connect with this book.
since it came out, I've been picking it up then putting it down waiting for it to finally call me to read it.
(i'm a believer that books call you when they're ready to be a part of your world. yes. i know i am weird.)
then i finally picked it up and right on the first page i was like wtf am i reading?
i had to re-read it several times just to even understand what i was reading.
it's not a bad book. Just like Bernadette, you have a "crazy" mom just trying to discover herself.
she gets herself in some shit, tries to get out of it or fix it or whatever...and along the way she says/does some funny stuff.
i just couldn't get into it.
it wasn't my thing.
by page 112 i wanted out so bad! but since i own the book i figured i should at least finish it cause, library book, fine, return it. who cares, i didn't pay. but when you own it, it hurts a little more to just end it without knowing. (at least it does for me.)
i gotta say, as much as i didn't care for it, i was glad i finished it cause i was able to find out (on pg 230 in case you want to cheat) why she was freaking out about her husband.
i didn't like that it went from her perspective to you reading about her and her family from a narrator's point of view. half of the time it took me several minutes to figure out whose voice i was reading it in.
(cant say its my fault when the book didn't keep me engaged!!!!)
it starts off with her, jumps to her sister, then to her having a breakdown, then you think ********* and then it turns out, that no. shes just crazy. (not literally, just, idk wtf to say.)
i think for me the saving grace of the book was Timby. that little kid was funny.
but also wtf kinda name is Timby?
uhm, overall, i mean, it definitely had its funny moments but i would have been okay skipping this one.
I'll leave you with some of my fave parts and then ill spoil it so fast for you, you'll be like all like "oh. that's it?" and ill be over here like yep.
"Was the sight of us so terrifying that the entire next generation of college-educated women declared "Anything but that!" and forsook careers altogether to pop out children in their twenties? Looking at the Galer Street moms, the answer would be: Apparently.
I hope it works out for them."
-Eleanor pg 30
(pg 36 explains Timby's name. i thought it was funny!)
"My friend Merrill told me that on the first date, a guy without realizing it will tell you why the relationship will ultimately fail."
-Eleanor pg 49
overall, i wish i would've been into it more and liked it more than i did because it did have some good parts and it was a good book it just wasnt my taste.
spoilers below!
thanks for reading
SPOILERS!!!!!!
(I'm announcing it loud and proud because i noticed that on a cellphone, it doesn't do a break line like on here (duh les!) (shush!)
short version:
her husband finds religion and her sister has denied her over and over.
the "longer" version:
the gist of it all is that shes kind of turned into a hot mess.
so she decides that today will be a different day.
the first page states all the things she'll do.
so she meets with her "poet professor" (who works at Costco!) leaves him to pick up her son and goes to her husbands job to drop the kid off so she can go have her "i don't even want to be here" lunch with Sidney.
except her husband told everyone at work hes taking the week off with the family so when she walks in and the receptionist is like "oh you're back!" she's all "oh. wtf!?" (i seriously thought he was cheating on her...with her sister. not the case.)
anyway, her husband Joe is super atheist because he grew up in a catholic school so he was subject to nun beatings and things like that so he doesn't believe in God. (that right there, for me, is what the book boiled down too. that's what's in page 230 that i was like fuck. really?)
and so she followed along kinda cause she had a "shitty-ish" childhood so yea.
anyway, so the first part...or parts or whatever because i wouldn't even be able to tell you how it's split, is about finding out where Joe is.
somewhere in there she picks up Timby, steals some other mom's keys and denies vehemently that she has a sister that Timby doesn't know anything about.
and it turns out that she does have a sister (and this is where The Flood Girls (the little color comic in the book) makes sense. (i read it and i was like wtf?) )
their mother passed away young so their father took care of them but he was an alcoholic so it was mostly Eleanor taking care of Ivy.
so then Ivy grows up (at one point, you think she dies because of the way she keeps talking about her) discovers modeling and then falls "in love" with the subject of Eleanor's employee or co-worker story/friend, Bucky.
he's a hot mess for all intensive purposes. he marries her and basically tells her what to do with her life so Ivy ends up cutting Eleanor out of her life. Eleanor is an embarrassment to Bucky all because she left a bucket of Dryer's out in the open and the paper ran that picture so he's suuuper against her.
i mean there is other stuff but i think this is where it started.
pretty "funny."
anyway, to cut the crap, Eleanor FINALLY finds Joe.
it turns out that he's found religion. (he almost beat the crap out of a yoga instructor and that was his AHA! moment.)
and she's like super pissed at him because he was soooo against it.
ex: when Ivy got married, he refused to go into the church.
and that's sorta it.
shes trying to not be a hot mess but hurts because of her sister's denial.
even after she's tried helping her a million different ways.
that and the "betrayal' that Joe's found religion once again after not believing in it for so long. but i think also because he has something that she can't or won't be a part of.
oh! and the bitch had a dog Yo-yo that she just leaves tied up to a cart at Costco.
who the fuh! just leaves a dog tied up and forgets!!!?
like i said, it wasn't really that catching to me but it definitely had its moments.
thanks for reading!
<3
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