About this title: This short novel recounts an important childhood friendship between two girls. The narrator, a middle-aged American photography curator living in Paris, recounts her past with humor: a summer job at an amusement park, smoking cigarettes, sneaking liquor, and her friendship with a 'bad girl' whom she leaves behind for boarding school and college.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: 6th printing on # line
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780446671910ISBN:0446671916
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Very clean pages & tight binding, edges are sharp w/pointed corners, almost like new. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 160 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780446671910ISBN:0446671916
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books Inc
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780446671910ISBN:0446671916
Description: Good. Copyright@1995. 5th printing. paperback. no writing. covers have edgewear and corner creased. clear text. tight binding. first page has very small water drop. read more
Description: Very Good. 0679434828 Condition: VERY GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, cover wear, name written inside cover, light underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, etc. Overall, the book is in solid shape. This is a blanket description. Please e us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week of your request). read more
Edition: First Paperback Edition, First Printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books Inc, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780446671910ISBN:0446671916
Description: Near Fine. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. An excellent paperback copy, unread and like new. The binding is solid, and there are no reading creases in the spine. The cover shows virtually no wear. The text is clean and unmarked. ----------------------------------------------------------------In this novel, middle-aged Berie Carr, as a release from her mockingly sophisticated life and somewhat disappointing marriage, thinks back to her unjaded youth and her one true friendship with a girl named Sils. In ... read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Warner Books Inc., New York, New York, USA
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780446671910ISBN:0446671916
Description: Very Good. No Jacket as Issued. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. BI3-A trade paperback book in very good+ condition. A tight, clean, sound copy in white wraps with purple, green and black lettering with very minor overall shelf wear. In a Paris bistro, Berie Carr, a middle-aged American woman, sits across from her husband, whom she realizes she no longer loves. Her thoughts return to a small town in upstate New York, to a time when life was as thrilling as it was ordinary. A novel about what it means to ... read more
Edition: F 2nd Printing; First Edition Used
Binding: H Hardcover
Publisher: Faber & Faber, London
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780571173105ISBN:0571173101
Description: Very Good in J Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall read more
"This novel is so beautiful and tender. It seems too easy to label this a "coming of age story". I think this book is about longing, and memory. And the details are, this book is about two 15 yr old girls in NY, who work for an amusement park and are best friends. The things they do, the people they meet, the conversations they have don't matter! What matters is how perfectly and gorgeously Lorrie Moore describes. And for another thing, she's funny and clever as hell. Read this book. Go out to your independent bookstore and read this damn book."
"I wonder if Lorrie Moore should have been a stand-up comic instead of a writer. She's funny, in a depressed way. I like that.
But it's tough to make a book out of it. There is a lack of realness to the events of this book. A secret abortion is acquired and things continue. A motorcycle accident and things continue. Thieving from one's workplace, getting arrested, and things continue, just sliding forward undramatically, without much of an emotional response, like the main character is half-frozen and only half-listening.
And the comedic one-liners add to this problem--more separation from the events, like you can hear the post-joke ba-dum ba-dum! Now onto the next thing... ha! ha!
Other complaints: I would rewrite the main character's family situation to make it real, more active, and involved. That's a lost opportunity. I would cut out the "later with my husband in Paris" stuff. Who cares? And the suddenly faux-thoughtful ending, the "Now I realize how much that time meant to me, it was everything..." type of thing? Get rid of that. It feels pasted on, to give a weightiness and meaning that the story inherently lacks.
Anyway--I'm being tough, but it's because Moore is a good writer. But the stories are much better than this."
"While I liked parts of this novel, including Moore's insights and writing style, the story itself, the back and forth between childhood and her current relationship, felt jarring to me. I wasn't swept into her concerns with her husband; those sections felt distant to me. The last 30 pages felt tacked on; giving the whole story a lack of coherence. Still, I want to read her short stories and try another of her novels."
"Perhaps I loved this book so much because I never had anything near the adolescence described. But I also think that it reads like poetry; so many one-liners that are so perfect. At times contrived, but so much more often I laughed aloud at the perfect images and absurdist puns and jokes. Though it is a bit disjointed, it really rang true for me: I think it really encapsulated the regret one feels for having been a lesser version of oneself in the past, and how much your childhood can haunt you even or especially when you have so completely altered your environment and yourself.
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