Denise's Reading Blog: November 2023

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Review: My Name Is Lucy Barton

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished reading this book on Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 1:36 p.m.

View all my reviews

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout-Notes & Highlights

This is the library book that I borrowed from my local library.

So, I don't know. I've been feeling kind of in a reading rut where the books that I'm currently reading. So I decided to use my beautiful ideal bookshelf tote bag / birthday tote bag that Senia got me for a library visit. I absolutely love that tote bag and I feel that it deserves an outing where other library patrons can see it. I took it with me to go to the library to browse the shelves. I don't usually do that, but I really wanted to use my new book tote bag that I will only use for the Phoenix Public Libraries. I wanted to look in the large print section, and I wanted a book that was less than 300 pages. This book has 172 pages. And! Of course I looked at the cover and couldn't resist the Chrysler building that's located in New York! I love any story that's set in NYC! So I was intrigued right off the bat! Then I read the summary on the back of the book and I thought that it was perfect for a quick read! Throughout this book I managed to shed a tear or two in some parts of the book.

“‘[Strout’s] themes are how incompletely we know one another, how “desperately hard every person in the world [is] working to get what they need,” and the redemptive power in little things — a shared memory, a shock of tulips.’” — People

I like the praise on the back of the book.

“Keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.”

I also like the last of the summary on the back of the book.

* Damn, this books is depressing.

* This book reads like a journal.

“My teacher saw that I loved reading, and she gave me books, even grown-up books, and I read them. And then later in high school I still read books, when my homework was done, in the warm school. But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone. This is my point. And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone! (But it was my secret” (26).

“He had come originally from France, from the aristocracy, and he gave that all up to be in America, starting as a young man. ‘Everyone different wanted to be in New York back then,’ he told me. ‘It was the place to come to. I guess it still is’” (38).

“‘Jeremy!’ I would say, and he would smile and lift his hat in a way that was courtly and old-fashioned and European—this is how I saw it” (39).

I love that. I imagine Jeremy to be a handsome Frenchman. ;)

“Lonely was the first flavor I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me” (42).

* As I was reading today I thought about how this author writes. I really don't want to sound selfish or conceited, but it reminds me of how I write. Like how her thoughts keep coming and she just writes them down.

“I allowed myself into heaven this way” (57).

I like how she worded this sentence. Like her own personal heaven when she felt scared and alone.

* I was smelling one of the book pages, and I swear that it smells like that blue plastic kitty pool we used to buy during the summers when I was a kid.

“...and I looked out the window and I saw a yellow taxi and I thought, I am in New York, I love New York, I am home” (153).

I ♥️ NYC

“But when I say ‘And for myself, I didn’t care,’ I mean this: that to be raised the way I was, with so little—only the inside of my head to call my own—I did not require much” (155).

I like the part in the quote where Lucy says that she owns the inside of her head. I like that very much. I relate.

I like the cute quotation mark separators on page 156.

“Chrissie said, not long ago, about the husband I have now: ‘I love him, Mom, but I hope he dies in his sleep and then my stepmom can die too, and you and Dad will get back together.’ I kissed the top of her head. I thought: I did this to my child.
Do I understand that hurt my children feel? I think I do, though they might claim otherwise. But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine” (171).

The whole chapter on page 171. I like the quote in the second ¶ (paragraph). It’s so sad.

I like what she says about what she wants people to leave with this story.

I really liked this book review.

I also like how this person reviews this book.

I like how she mentioned the parental topic.

Now that I've watched all these book reviews I really do think that this book makes you think about your own life because of the way the book is written.