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In this moving, wry, and candid novel, widely acclaimed novelist Ayelet Waldman takes us through one woman’s passage through love, loss, and the strange absurdities of modern life.Emilia Greenleaf believed that she had found her soulmate, the man she was meant to spend her life with. But life seems a lot less rosy when Emilia has to deal with the most neurotic and sheltered five-year-old in New York City: her new stepson William. Now Emilia finds herself trying to flag down taxis with a giant, industrial-strength car seat, looking for perfect, strawberry-flavored, lactose-free cupcakes, receiving corrections on her French pronunciation from her supercilious stepson – and attempting to find balance in a new family that’s both larger, and smaller, than she bargained for. In Love and Other Impossible Pursuits Ayelet Waldman has created a novel rich with humor and truth, perfectly characterizing one woman’s search for answers in a crazily uncertain world.
88 Reviews
3.5
Reads for Fun
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Laura
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OwaysReads
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“Usually we don’t get struggles about being a step mom rarely in any medium - minus the movie step mom. Usually they are relagated to being evil - watching you Cinderella or self help books.
Love and Other Impossible pursuits attempts to right just that. Presenting a nuanced portrayal of one woman Emilia's struggle to connect and develop a relationship with her step son, almost getting him to the ER one time because of the allergies she didn't know about.
There is so much to unpack here and more. She is dealing with trying to develop a civilrelationship with her partners ex and dealing with her own personal loss and its grief of losing her own child. It is a heartfelt journey woodman takes Emilia on to process that grief.
Mind you this is not just a one note portrayal of it. Ayelet Woodman goes for much more emotional depths of this - the awkwardness, the attitude, the repressed trauma, the processing of grief and more … she does it with a deft hand on the plot to keep it moving without letting it get boring. And when there is that revelation is made in the book and why it happened, your heart just goes out to her.
While her relationship with her stepson forms the crux of the story, the other characters including the ex wife are given nuance and a much more heft where she is empathetic towards emilia's grief instead of dismissing her.
The book was also adapted and is one of Natalie Portman's lesser known films but her and Lisa Kudrow give impressive performances.. but like most adaptations, i prefer the book.”
Jessica Fisher
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Jessica Phares
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About Ayelet Waldman
Ayelet (pronounced "I yell it") Waldman is the author of Daughter's Keeper and of the Mommy-Track mystery series. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, Child magazine, and other publications, and she has a regular column on Salon.com. She and her husband, the novelist Michael Chabon, live in Berkeley, California, with their four children. www.ayeletwaldman.com
Other books by Ayelet Waldman
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