Book review: I’m Not Julia Roberts
Nov 30th, 2007 by Jill
I’m Not Julia Roberts
This book made me so sad. I wanted it to make me laugh, but when I finished it, I ended up clinging to G asking him to reassure me that I had a soul (to the extent possible for an atheist). I felt cold, and in shock, and a little despairing. I felt like I’d just read about one of the top circles of Dante’s Inferno.
I loved that Laura Ruby wrote each chapter from a different character’s perspective, until we’d seen the world through the eyes of stepmoms, moms, moms who were also stepmoms, and dads. I loved that Laura Ruby was sympathetic to all of their plights. But I wanted more love between the characters. It didn’t look or feel to me like anyone really loved anyone else in this book. I didn’t see anything that showed why what anyone went through in this book was worth it. Parents didn’t even seem to love their children. Spouses didn’t seem to love each other. And even though we saw that the characters were suffering in similar ways, the characters didn’t see it. They didn’t connect or empathize or grow. I wanted them to.
P.S. Thank you very much to my sister who sent me this book — which I was curious about and wanted to read — for my birthday. Even though it was bleak, it’s a valuable part of my stepfamily library. I love you!
Never heard of this book before but now I’m intrigued though I’m so tired of the negative ones.
Want to borrow it, Simplicity? If so, email me your address and I’ll mail it to you. I’m at jilldoughtie@gmail.com.
I will look for this. It is intriguing. Thank you for the review.
Hi Carmen, how neat that you made it over to this blog! It is nice to see your name pop up here. If you like, you can borrow this book when Simplicity is done with it. Just let me know.