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Want
Grappling with motherhood, economic anxiety, rage, and the limits of language, Want is a fiercely personal novel that vibrates with anger, insight, and love.
Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD―and now they’re filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.
When she reaches out to Sasha, her long-lost childhood friend, it feels almost harmless―one of those innocuous ruptures that exist online, in texts. But her timing is uncanny. Sasha is facing a crisis, too, and perhaps after years apart, their shared moments of crux can bring them back into each other’s lives.
In Want, Lynn Steger Strong explores the subtle violences enacted on a certain type of woman when she dares to want things―and all the various violences in which she implicates herself as she tries to survive.
Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD―and now they’re filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.
When she reaches out to Sasha, her long-lost childhood friend, it feels almost harmless―one of those innocuous ruptures that exist online, in texts. But her timing is uncanny. Sasha is facing a crisis, too, and perhaps after years apart, their shared moments of crux can bring them back into each other’s lives.
In Want, Lynn Steger Strong explores the subtle violences enacted on a certain type of woman when she dares to want things―and all the various violences in which she implicates herself as she tries to survive.
209 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2020
1029 people are currently reading
36667 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Steger Strong
4 books515 followersLynn Steger Strong was born and raised in South Florida and received an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University where she also taught Freshman Writing. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two small girls.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,128 reviews
October 13, 2020
Race, privilege, dysfunctional family relationships, imperfect friendships, the struggles of a working mother and wife who is depressed, so many unmet needs and wants - all packed into this novel. I found this to be such a depressing read. Depressing because most times there seems to be no way out, no way for thirty four year old Elizabeth to rise from all that is happening in her life, all that has happened. Depressing because she is depressed and anxious trying to deal with how to be a good mother, how to deal with the financial bankruptcy she and her husband face. She’s still reliant on a best friend she was jealous of for years, and is pretty much estranged from, except for sporadic texts, but yet needs that connection now . She aggravated me at times with decisions she makes, but I felt for her and I admired her desire to help her students and it was clear she loves her husband and children. I struggled, though, to get through this, even though it’s not a very long book. Yet, I persisted mainly to find out if she and her friend do reconnect and to see how that would or if, change anything, to see if there was a way that reconnecting with family would ease her burdens. Ultimately, I can say that I’m glad I hung in there, but this won’t go down as a favorite read. Others, perhaps closer in age and circumstances to Elizabeth will relate more than I did. The thing I enjoyed the most were the literary references.
I received a copy of this book from Henry Holt & Co. through Edelweiss.
August 8, 2023
A novel about being trapped in exactly the life you were privileged enough to lead. The narrator of this novel, 34 year old Elizabeth, is white and has a Ph.D., but she works as an adjunct and, without insurance, has been bankrupted by a Caesarian and bad teeth. Her husband has a few more degrees of freedom...but this isn't a novel of overt resentment over women's lives overrun by children an responsibilities, so much as it is a relentlessly truthful, ruthlessly intelligent story of a woman looking at her life and asking: "Is it worth it?" and finding out that her answer is 'yes.'
Favorite quote: “We cannot live outside the systems and the structures, but, it turns out, I cannot live within them either anymore.”
That sounds fairly bleak, as far as life philosophies go, only Elizabeth is insightful enough to understand that her ability to experience her own life fully as she lives it, day to day, is exactly what makes it meaningful
Favorite quote: “We cannot live outside the systems and the structures, but, it turns out, I cannot live within them either anymore.”
That sounds fairly bleak, as far as life philosophies go, only Elizabeth is insightful enough to understand that her ability to experience her own life fully as she lives it, day to day, is exactly what makes it meaningful
July 17, 2020
“I want to tell her that I’m scared I’m too wore out, worn down, that this constant anxious ache that I have now isn’t about my job or kids or all the ways life isn’t what it should be, that maybe it’s just me, it’s most of who I am.”
Imagine, if you will, the most extreme case of stream of consciousness you could possibly imagine, and that will give you some idea what it's like to read Want. Oddly though, I didn't hate it. In fact, it almost felt like a guilty pleasure as I flew through this story about a woman's inner turmoil in the face of a dead-end job, bankruptcy, a strained parental relationship, anxiety and depression, motherhood, and an old friendship which brings feelings of guilt to the forefront.
Narrated entirely by Elizabeth, we're given a glimpse into the lives of so many families today (particularly in the summer of 2020, when unemployment rates have skyrocketed), who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
“We were eighties babies,” Elizabeth explains, “born of plenty, cloistered by our whiteness and the places we were raised … we were both brought up to think that if we checked off certain boxes we’d be fine.”
Lynn Steger Strong unapologetically gives readers an unflinching, first-hand look at womanhood in the twenty-first century, in addition to the workings of the so-called middle class America.
Recommend for those who enjoy literary, artsy-type novels.
3.5 stars
Available for purchase now!
**My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for my review copy.
March 15, 2020
Lynn Steger Strong's Want reads like a highly personal confession of various wants: the want of money and stability in one’s life and career; the want of providing more stability for one’s children, as well as support—emotional, financial, and otherwise—for one’s spouse; and also the want of creating lasting ties and friendships amid a world where technology has made us feel that people are closer, and yet has instead created gaps and chasms among people, even, in the narrator’s case here, her oldest friend, Sasha.
The narrator of Want comes from a socioeconomically privileged background, with an Ivy League doctoral education to boot (Columbia is never named, but hinted at). With a husband following his fantasy of a dream job and two children to provide for, Steger Strong’s novel charts what it’s like to work at a charter high school in the Bronx—where the students are cattle-prodded into performing high on standardized testing rather than offered actual instruction or one-on-one time that would actually serve them—and also catalogues the increasing adjunctification of higher education in America. For those over-educated living in New York City, this is often paired with being over-worked and under-paid; this is the case of Steger Strong’s narrator in Want, and we witness how she attempts to balance her several jobs, declaring bankruptcy despite working nonstop, being a parent to her children and as much of a supportive wife to her husband as possible, all the while fantasizing about a friendship that fell off the tracks a decade ago—one that is only really continued on social media, in fits and starts.
There are a lot of interesting passages and sequences to mull over in Want, and the books the narrator teaches to her undergrads at night are both resonant of her own prose and also familiarly savory to fans of literary and translated fiction. There are echoes of Rachel Cusk here, too, while Steger Strong maintains her own voice: never once fearful of admitting privilege and its loss for her narrator, and never scared to shows the flaws in modern life in terms of how it affects family, finances, mental health, and one’s personal relations.
While there are many quotes I would love to pluck from the book, I’m respecting the do-not-quote mandate of the ARC I read—kindly provided by Henry Holt and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review—and urge those who are all too familiar with the over-educated and under-paid gap in America right now, especially those in education, to read this book when it’s published in July 2020.
4.5 stars
The narrator of Want comes from a socioeconomically privileged background, with an Ivy League doctoral education to boot (Columbia is never named, but hinted at). With a husband following his fantasy of a dream job and two children to provide for, Steger Strong’s novel charts what it’s like to work at a charter high school in the Bronx—where the students are cattle-prodded into performing high on standardized testing rather than offered actual instruction or one-on-one time that would actually serve them—and also catalogues the increasing adjunctification of higher education in America. For those over-educated living in New York City, this is often paired with being over-worked and under-paid; this is the case of Steger Strong’s narrator in Want, and we witness how she attempts to balance her several jobs, declaring bankruptcy despite working nonstop, being a parent to her children and as much of a supportive wife to her husband as possible, all the while fantasizing about a friendship that fell off the tracks a decade ago—one that is only really continued on social media, in fits and starts.
There are a lot of interesting passages and sequences to mull over in Want, and the books the narrator teaches to her undergrads at night are both resonant of her own prose and also familiarly savory to fans of literary and translated fiction. There are echoes of Rachel Cusk here, too, while Steger Strong maintains her own voice: never once fearful of admitting privilege and its loss for her narrator, and never scared to shows the flaws in modern life in terms of how it affects family, finances, mental health, and one’s personal relations.
While there are many quotes I would love to pluck from the book, I’m respecting the do-not-quote mandate of the ARC I read—kindly provided by Henry Holt and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review—and urge those who are all too familiar with the over-educated and under-paid gap in America right now, especially those in education, to read this book when it’s published in July 2020.
4.5 stars
June 21, 2020
This is one of my favorite kind of books where I breezed through it in a couple days but there were countless points where I had to stop and appreciate a turn of phrase or a character trait description or something clever or the speaking of some truth that I identified with. The narration is in the present tense, with sections from past and present flowing together as one which had the beautiful effect of feeling like you’re in the main character’s stream of consciousness. It addressed the concept of women attempting to fulfill multiple roles simultaneously from mother, daughter, wife, sister, teacher, friend, and neighbor and the inevitability of failure from trying to be so many things at once. Our narrator (whose name is revealed at the very end) is constantly juggling all these facets of herself and her different privileges and what they mean. She is a white woman in her mid thirties, she’s in love with her husband and has two young daughters, she comes from a wealthy family who she is mostly estranged from, and at the beginning of the book she’s filing for bankruptcy, racked with crippling debt, but is still required to make payments on student loans that will never go away. Interspersed with her current predicaments is flashbacks to her teenage life, where she is friends, but more like sisters, with a girl named Sasha who she has since lost touch with. She shifts through all of these components and more, including her teaching jobs at a high school and night classes at a prestigious college, as well as her new friendship with a South American writer who sits in on one of her classes. The narration style reminded me of Jenny Offill’s books, with a woman recounting dispatches from her everyday like, but more cohesive and fluid. The author also excelled at breaking out of the enjoyable monotonous day to day account and making the reader feel the tension when the stakes are upped, especially during an uncomfortable moment with her parents and when something happens to one of her neighbors. I can’t say enough positive things about this book. I was interested in every part of it.
May 11, 2022
3.5 stars: “Want” by Lynn Steger Strong is a contemporary story of a thirty-something mother of two who is in a “mid” Mid-life crisis. Well, it’s more of a “coming-of-age” into adulthood and the realities of adulthood that idealistic young-adults confront.
Our not named narrator until the last few pages, received an English PHD from Columbia, and now works as a high school English teacher in a NYC Charter School, after not getting a university professor job. She does have an adjunct teaching job that she teaches at night. Her husband worked for Lehman Brothers and lost his job in the infamous stock market crash. His salary was in the six figures, but he felt it was soul sucking and what he really wanted to do is be a carpenter, making artisanal furniture and carpentry. They cannot afford day care, so he stays home with the two unnamed girls, aged 2 and 4.
Her husband has over $100K in college debt. When she had her first child, she needed an emergency C-section which her insurance didn’t cover and that cost them $30K. Then, she needed two root canals and needed a $10K new tooth and a crown. So basically, they are in debt beyond their eyeballs and bleeding debt daily.
The narrator was raised upper middle class, with no student debt and a credit card she abused while in college. So, she had a financially easy life until adulthood. Perhaps that earlier financial ease of life adds to her slow burning anger of her predicament. Her husband works on weekends when she is home, and they cannot afford a babysitter to go out. They can barely afford food. She is in want.
She spends an enormous amount of time cyber stocking her best friend from high school and college. They had a falling out, which we learn slowly through the novel.
Most of the story, though, is of the narrator trying to make it day to day. Her high school job is soul-crushing. She sneaks out early to go to art museums or to a coffee shop to read novels. She is a frustrating main character in that I wanted to slap her silly and say she’s irresponsible. I felt sorry for her, in that she absolutely hated her job. But I realize that this generation feels that their job should be something they love and not be all about money.
I wonder if part of Strong’s point in this novel is the showing the struggle between being true to your idealistic convictions and the reality of supporting yourself. And she shows just how many people are on the economic edge, facing bankruptcy. Plus, there is the “want” of that younger, freer self when you had girl friends who were more important than boyfriends, when you didn’t have the financial weight of supporting a family.
All in all, this is a dark and unsettling story. It highlights the financial struggle of young families, and the emotional toll of being responsible.
Our not named narrator until the last few pages, received an English PHD from Columbia, and now works as a high school English teacher in a NYC Charter School, after not getting a university professor job. She does have an adjunct teaching job that she teaches at night. Her husband worked for Lehman Brothers and lost his job in the infamous stock market crash. His salary was in the six figures, but he felt it was soul sucking and what he really wanted to do is be a carpenter, making artisanal furniture and carpentry. They cannot afford day care, so he stays home with the two unnamed girls, aged 2 and 4.
Her husband has over $100K in college debt. When she had her first child, she needed an emergency C-section which her insurance didn’t cover and that cost them $30K. Then, she needed two root canals and needed a $10K new tooth and a crown. So basically, they are in debt beyond their eyeballs and bleeding debt daily.
The narrator was raised upper middle class, with no student debt and a credit card she abused while in college. So, she had a financially easy life until adulthood. Perhaps that earlier financial ease of life adds to her slow burning anger of her predicament. Her husband works on weekends when she is home, and they cannot afford a babysitter to go out. They can barely afford food. She is in want.
She spends an enormous amount of time cyber stocking her best friend from high school and college. They had a falling out, which we learn slowly through the novel.
Most of the story, though, is of the narrator trying to make it day to day. Her high school job is soul-crushing. She sneaks out early to go to art museums or to a coffee shop to read novels. She is a frustrating main character in that I wanted to slap her silly and say she’s irresponsible. I felt sorry for her, in that she absolutely hated her job. But I realize that this generation feels that their job should be something they love and not be all about money.
I wonder if part of Strong’s point in this novel is the showing the struggle between being true to your idealistic convictions and the reality of supporting yourself. And she shows just how many people are on the economic edge, facing bankruptcy. Plus, there is the “want” of that younger, freer self when you had girl friends who were more important than boyfriends, when you didn’t have the financial weight of supporting a family.
All in all, this is a dark and unsettling story. It highlights the financial struggle of young families, and the emotional toll of being responsible.
July 27, 2020
This book is basically an endless rant of a white priviliged woman who has two kids. She constantly worries about how she can't make meets end although she dislikes her job and is the most unprofessional person on earth. She also says she refuses her parents' money but it actually seems they don't want to give her anymore because she nor her husband ever seem to get their sh*t together. There's also some rambling about a former friend who she's now stranged to because she bailed on her when she needed her the most. But that's about it. There's no plot, no character development or redemption arc, no engaging writing (in fact, the narrator's voice is quite jammed), no ending... I honestly don't know what was the point of this story.
August 3, 2020
Could I write a fair review of Want without condescension? My professional career included everything the main character misses and wants, specifically a tenured professorship at a major research university. That of course is the life to which most PhD students aspire. Unfortunately in today’s educational world, only a small proportion of them obtain anything like it. Something like seventy per cent of teaching in American higher education is done by part-time temporary staff, teaching assistants, lecturers and adjuncts. Generally these instructors are treated like pariahs by the regular faculty, paid execrably, receive no health insurance, and may not even be allotted a desk, much less an office. The excuse their employers for such contemptuous treatment is that they have no responsibility for doing research and publication, or for advising students, although in fact they may be the only faculty members an undergraduate student ever has a chance to talk with. Besides her evening class at a university, our main character also teaches high-school English to racial minority students at a charter school, where they discuss questions like whether or not Ophelia was crazy. She is about to be demoted to the ninth grade, because she’s not trained to teach “test prep”; Americans believe that they need to prepare for college entrance exams by memorizing vocabulary lists, rather than getting a library card and using it to read books.
Elizabeth¬–we only find out her name late in the book—is in her mid-30s and lives with her husband and nameless children (they are called “the two-year old” and “the four-year old”) in Brooklyn, where she gets up early to run across the bridge several miles to work. We learn that she ran track in high school in Florida. Her parents are “attorneys” (that’s middle-class vernacular for lawyers) and Elizabeth and her husband are definitely downwardly mobile. She got a doctorate (probably from Columba after graduating from Harvard) specializing in forgotten twentieth-century women novelists (though I wasn’t aware that Anita Brookner had been forgotten). Her husband worked in the financial sector till the fall of Lehmann Brothers, and now is a carpenter specializing in fine woodwork for up-scale clients. We never really discover how this couple found themselves with their precarious finances, living in a very expensive city producing what are essentially luxury goods for the wealthy classes. (At one point, Elizabeth’s husband is offered $20,000 dollars to be a sperm donor for the wife of a client.) We are so involved in the minutiae of their frantic life instead. I imagine that like many of us, Elizabeth decided to become an English major because she liked reading books though I am surprised she completed a doctorate, a program likely to eradicate whatever pleasure one derives from reading. In my own case I was fortunate to find I liked doing scholarship, though I mostly abandoned reading and writing for recreation till I retired from the university. Elizabeth has no scholarly projects, but she clearly cares for teaching, at least at the college level. Unfortunately chatting about books, like crafting fine furniture (ironically at the end they find themselves assembling Ikea cases for their books), is unlikely to provide adequate sustenance in the current extreme economic climate, even without children. It had already been clear that the traditional academic model of tenured professorship would go extinct, and the Covid-19 virus and Zoom online teaching may well finish it off. Like so many things I look back on with nostalgia from my lifetime, I am so glad to have had to good fortune to get paid to enjoy the lost world of leisure and scholarship
Elizabeth¬–we only find out her name late in the book—is in her mid-30s and lives with her husband and nameless children (they are called “the two-year old” and “the four-year old”) in Brooklyn, where she gets up early to run across the bridge several miles to work. We learn that she ran track in high school in Florida. Her parents are “attorneys” (that’s middle-class vernacular for lawyers) and Elizabeth and her husband are definitely downwardly mobile. She got a doctorate (probably from Columba after graduating from Harvard) specializing in forgotten twentieth-century women novelists (though I wasn’t aware that Anita Brookner had been forgotten). Her husband worked in the financial sector till the fall of Lehmann Brothers, and now is a carpenter specializing in fine woodwork for up-scale clients. We never really discover how this couple found themselves with their precarious finances, living in a very expensive city producing what are essentially luxury goods for the wealthy classes. (At one point, Elizabeth’s husband is offered $20,000 dollars to be a sperm donor for the wife of a client.) We are so involved in the minutiae of their frantic life instead. I imagine that like many of us, Elizabeth decided to become an English major because she liked reading books though I am surprised she completed a doctorate, a program likely to eradicate whatever pleasure one derives from reading. In my own case I was fortunate to find I liked doing scholarship, though I mostly abandoned reading and writing for recreation till I retired from the university. Elizabeth has no scholarly projects, but she clearly cares for teaching, at least at the college level. Unfortunately chatting about books, like crafting fine furniture (ironically at the end they find themselves assembling Ikea cases for their books), is unlikely to provide adequate sustenance in the current extreme economic climate, even without children. It had already been clear that the traditional academic model of tenured professorship would go extinct, and the Covid-19 virus and Zoom online teaching may well finish it off. Like so many things I look back on with nostalgia from my lifetime, I am so glad to have had to good fortune to get paid to enjoy the lost world of leisure and scholarship
July 9, 2020
I guess I've expected something else. The style is very dry and maybe even bad? Some sentences are not grammatically understandable, and not in the fun experimental way. Also, what is it with people not naming their characters thinking it will somehow make the book deeper? Oh, and there was a lot of nursing. I ain't got kids, but should a child still be nursed on her third birthday? the book is chock-full with references to intellectual fiction, to make the reader feel cultured I guess. This effort is nowhere near the books she mentioned (yeah I read most of them, too!).
The obligatory me-too zeitgeisty node was done too bluntly (she doesn't want to have sex with her husband because she doesn't like men right now?!). Basically I disliked all plot, and it doesn't have a strong narrative voice at all. Ugh the worst thing is that I pre-ordered it and really wanted to like it.
The obligatory me-too zeitgeisty node was done too bluntly (she doesn't want to have sex with her husband because she doesn't like men right now?!). Basically I disliked all plot, and it doesn't have a strong narrative voice at all. Ugh the worst thing is that I pre-ordered it and really wanted to like it.
January 19, 2020
"All that talking, years of reading: There was a time I thought that all language might contain something of value, but most of life is flat and boring and the things we say are too. Or maybe it's that most of life is so much stranger than language is able to make room for, so we say the same dead things and hope maybe the who and how of what is said can make it into what we mean."
Lynn Steger Strong's latest novel, Want, opens in 2000 with a doting memory of our heroine, Elizabeth, at age 16, and how she's tethered her love to her dear friend, Sasha, a year ahead of her. Like all beautiful people, Sasha is alluring, magnetic, an unfailing reminder of the innumerable ways Elizabeth places second to her. Seventeen years later: Elizabeth is 34, struggling to uphold her family of four as the brood's breadwinner, and barely making ends meet as an adjunct professor at underprivileged schools following the misadventures of her self-employed husband and the demands of their young daughters. She has, in so many ways, been broken by the trajectory of her life. She is not alone.
While finding transient joy in being a confidant to her students, doing morning runs, and leaving work unannounced to read books in cafes at the limited leisure of her “magic credit card,” she scrolls through the wasteland of social media feeds to find Sasha — married and approaching motherhood again — with whom she yearns to reconcile after her descent to drugs and miscarriage years ago. Burned by the backhanded affection of her parents, whose abuse lingers long after she escapes Florida for an unaffordable life in New York, Elizabeth, like so many other women, must grapple with wanting so much from a world that does not always want her. Who must keep her hands on the steering wheel at all times, and must pull herself together at all times even when it seems the very fabric of her life continues to unravel around her.
With Want, Strong pens an exhilarating evocation of the ways women overcome the hurdles of motherhood, the distress of being undesired, and the painful severance of once-beloved friendships.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Lynn Steger Strong's latest novel, Want, opens in 2000 with a doting memory of our heroine, Elizabeth, at age 16, and how she's tethered her love to her dear friend, Sasha, a year ahead of her. Like all beautiful people, Sasha is alluring, magnetic, an unfailing reminder of the innumerable ways Elizabeth places second to her. Seventeen years later: Elizabeth is 34, struggling to uphold her family of four as the brood's breadwinner, and barely making ends meet as an adjunct professor at underprivileged schools following the misadventures of her self-employed husband and the demands of their young daughters. She has, in so many ways, been broken by the trajectory of her life. She is not alone.
While finding transient joy in being a confidant to her students, doing morning runs, and leaving work unannounced to read books in cafes at the limited leisure of her “magic credit card,” she scrolls through the wasteland of social media feeds to find Sasha — married and approaching motherhood again — with whom she yearns to reconcile after her descent to drugs and miscarriage years ago. Burned by the backhanded affection of her parents, whose abuse lingers long after she escapes Florida for an unaffordable life in New York, Elizabeth, like so many other women, must grapple with wanting so much from a world that does not always want her. Who must keep her hands on the steering wheel at all times, and must pull herself together at all times even when it seems the very fabric of her life continues to unravel around her.
With Want, Strong pens an exhilarating evocation of the ways women overcome the hurdles of motherhood, the distress of being undesired, and the painful severance of once-beloved friendships.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
July 25, 2020
I found myself agonizing about this review. About drawing a line between not liking a main character and not liking the author's work. (Not liking is a mild way of putting it). But then, as I progressed with my reading, the line blurred, as the sloppiness of the writing matched the sloppiness of the narrator/ character.
This book is based on the life of the author (most family and professional life details of the narrator are the same as those of the author), but the text is full of inconsistencies, contradictions, so much so that she comes across as either lying or completely oblivious to her own reality. An editor should have caught those inconsistencies before the book went to print. Also, the repetitiveness of the mundane and the prosaic is exasperating throughout.
She is sloppy. The prosaic and exasperating repetition in her writing manifests a lethargy rooted in her upbringing. The child of that generation that has benefited from good public education, a good health care system, graduated with no debt, had good jobs, but consistently voted for and supported politicians who gutted funds for education, social programs, health care. Because community does not matter to them. All that mattered was them paying fewer taxes. Her parents are the kind of people who preach about 'pulling yourself up by the boot straps' but never had to do that themselves. Those parents raised kids like this character, who was brought up in fuzzy slippers, highly inadequate for running the marathons needed today to do well in this country which is so hideously disfigured by the greed of the privileged. She is painfully ill prepared for life, immature and lazy. She shirks her duties, she fails, she quits this, she quits that, she complains... oh the complaining, and gloominess and self pity!!! She is part of the problem and also a manifestation thereof. At least, through her failings, her parents get the slap in the face they so very well deserve.
Most aggravating to me is her claiming she loves her students, but neglecting her teaching job, missing days upon days of work, and still complaining and seeing herself as a victim, while she is victimizing her students. Of course, it all ends well when mommy and daddy come in with their money to make everything better, saving the day. How predictable. A listless and irresponsible character has her happy ending.
This book in a nutshell for me: a compilation of boring, repetitive acts of egoism, and a detailed picture of all sorts of incompetence, coated in sickening amounts of gloom and self pity. Revolting.
This book is based on the life of the author (most family and professional life details of the narrator are the same as those of the author), but the text is full of inconsistencies, contradictions, so much so that she comes across as either lying or completely oblivious to her own reality. An editor should have caught those inconsistencies before the book went to print. Also, the repetitiveness of the mundane and the prosaic is exasperating throughout.
She is sloppy. The prosaic and exasperating repetition in her writing manifests a lethargy rooted in her upbringing. The child of that generation that has benefited from good public education, a good health care system, graduated with no debt, had good jobs, but consistently voted for and supported politicians who gutted funds for education, social programs, health care. Because community does not matter to them. All that mattered was them paying fewer taxes. Her parents are the kind of people who preach about 'pulling yourself up by the boot straps' but never had to do that themselves. Those parents raised kids like this character, who was brought up in fuzzy slippers, highly inadequate for running the marathons needed today to do well in this country which is so hideously disfigured by the greed of the privileged. She is painfully ill prepared for life, immature and lazy. She shirks her duties, she fails, she quits this, she quits that, she complains... oh the complaining, and gloominess and self pity!!! She is part of the problem and also a manifestation thereof. At least, through her failings, her parents get the slap in the face they so very well deserve.
Most aggravating to me is her claiming she loves her students, but neglecting her teaching job, missing days upon days of work, and still complaining and seeing herself as a victim, while she is victimizing her students. Of course, it all ends well when mommy and daddy come in with their money to make everything better, saving the day. How predictable. A listless and irresponsible character has her happy ending.
This book in a nutshell for me: a compilation of boring, repetitive acts of egoism, and a detailed picture of all sorts of incompetence, coated in sickening amounts of gloom and self pity. Revolting.
December 18, 2020
The best parts of this book is that it has a beautiful cover, it was short and it is over.
I read this book but am not sure what the plot or point of it was. This was the only thing that kept me going or wanting to finish this. Sadly, it was a waste of time.
The main character, Elizabeth is depressed and anxious. She is facing a bankruptcy with her husband, she sloughs off her job and overall I find her lazy and unlikeable.
She quits her job (wow!) and they are so broke her husband considers selling his sperm.
She has this best friend that she had an obsessive, jealous relationship with but have been estranged because her friend was suicidal.
She does not get along with her parents and they have a completely dysfunctional relationship to the extent that her mum wonders if Elizabeth should give up her children?
The most recurrent theme in this book is breastfeeding as has a 2 year old that asks to be breastfed and wants to know how she can get feelings out of her head. What kind of 2 year old asks that kind of question?
Sorry but not sorry. This was excruciating. My second 1 star rating this year- out of 140+ books.
Moving on.....
I read this book but am not sure what the plot or point of it was. This was the only thing that kept me going or wanting to finish this. Sadly, it was a waste of time.
The main character, Elizabeth is depressed and anxious. She is facing a bankruptcy with her husband, she sloughs off her job and overall I find her lazy and unlikeable.
She quits her job (wow!) and they are so broke her husband considers selling his sperm.
She has this best friend that she had an obsessive, jealous relationship with but have been estranged because her friend was suicidal.
She does not get along with her parents and they have a completely dysfunctional relationship to the extent that her mum wonders if Elizabeth should give up her children?
The most recurrent theme in this book is breastfeeding as has a 2 year old that asks to be breastfed and wants to know how she can get feelings out of her head. What kind of 2 year old asks that kind of question?
Sorry but not sorry. This was excruciating. My second 1 star rating this year- out of 140+ books.
Moving on.....
September 12, 2020
5+ out of 5.
Wow I absolutely devoured this, almost in a single breath. It's the story of a woman trying to eke out a living in New York in our painful present: she and her husband have declared bankruptcy, she's got a bad relationship with her parents, she's a teacher stuck in the bullshit education system this country have developed, she's got two kids, and she's still grappling with leaving her best friend when they were younger.
In a lot of ways, it's another of these "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?" or "Marlena" type books... but it's more powerful than those because the friendship isn't the defining thing about the book; the defining thing is the narrator and her, yes, 'want' for things to just not be so fucking difficult.
Man I loved every second of this. Fantastic stuff.
Wow I absolutely devoured this, almost in a single breath. It's the story of a woman trying to eke out a living in New York in our painful present: she and her husband have declared bankruptcy, she's got a bad relationship with her parents, she's a teacher stuck in the bullshit education system this country have developed, she's got two kids, and she's still grappling with leaving her best friend when they were younger.
In a lot of ways, it's another of these "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?" or "Marlena" type books... but it's more powerful than those because the friendship isn't the defining thing about the book; the defining thing is the narrator and her, yes, 'want' for things to just not be so fucking difficult.
Man I loved every second of this. Fantastic stuff.
December 13, 2020
This is the story of a woman juggling two jobs and two kids while she and her husband are filing for bankruptcy; one of her oldest friendships keeps coming to mind for reasons that become more clear. It's kind of like Severance without the zombies, with the added responsibility of children, but the same daily grind feeling.
I actually enjoyed it, a very strong capture of the 2010s especially in more expensive places like NYC. I read it because it is on the Tournament of Books long list, it was short, and I could get it from the library without a wait. I feel like there is a lot to discuss with Want but that people who hate relationship novels are going to hate it. (I, on the other hand, love a good relationship novel!) We'll see.
I actually enjoyed it, a very strong capture of the 2010s especially in more expensive places like NYC. I read it because it is on the Tournament of Books long list, it was short, and I could get it from the library without a wait. I feel like there is a lot to discuss with Want but that people who hate relationship novels are going to hate it. (I, on the other hand, love a good relationship novel!) We'll see.
January 16, 2020
A mostly nameless narrator talks about her wants. She’s unhappy in her job and she and her husband have filed for bankruptcy. They have no money to do much of anything. She does seem to like spending time with her children, though, who she refers to as the 2-year-old and the 4-year-old. Long blocks of text go by in which she refers to others as “she” which made it very difficult for me to remember who she was talking about.
I guess this is the new avant-garde style of writing where hardly anyone has a name. I prefer names that I can associate with characters in a book. That makes it easier for me to follow the author’s train of thought.
To me, the unnamed narrator who we find out near the end is Elizabeth, whined way too much. And virtually did nothing to change her circumstances for the better. That is my opinion and it doesn’t align with what other reviewers have said. If you don’t mind dwelling on depression for 300+ pages. this may be a great read for you.
I guess this is the new avant-garde style of writing where hardly anyone has a name. I prefer names that I can associate with characters in a book. That makes it easier for me to follow the author’s train of thought.
To me, the unnamed narrator who we find out near the end is Elizabeth, whined way too much. And virtually did nothing to change her circumstances for the better. That is my opinion and it doesn’t align with what other reviewers have said. If you don’t mind dwelling on depression for 300+ pages. this may be a great read for you.
July 5, 2021
O rzeczywistości, która odbiega od oczekiwań. O niespełnieniu, które uzurpuje sobie zbyt wiele miejsca. O zmęczeniu, które dotyka zbyt wielu obszarów codzienności. O niedopasowaniu, które powoli wyklucza. O wypaleniu, które dominuje nad rozsądkiem. I w końcu o uprzywilejowaniu, które w tym przypadku jest wyjątkowo niezauważane i niedoceniane.
"Niedostatek" opowiada o 34-letniej kobiecie zagubionej w swojej codzienności, wyczerpanej, zrezygnowanej. Elisabeth ma męża, dwójkę dzieci, pracę nauczycielki, dysfunkcyjną relację z rodzicami, bieganie jako formę oddechu od rzeczywistości i dużo niezdecydowania. Pragnie, choć sama nie wie czego. Razem z mężem jest zmuszona ogłosić bankructwo (ale nie przeszkadza jej to zaciągać się na karcie kredytowej na drobne zachcianki). Spędza mało czasu z (bezimiennymi) dziećmi, bo pracuje w kilku szkołach (trudno jest nazwać ją "ciężko-pracującą", bo pozwala sobie na sporo umyków i delikatnie mówiąc pracy zbyt poważnie nie traktuje). Ma bogatych rodziców i po cichu liczy na ich pomoc w wyjściu z długów (choć sama się od nich kilka lat temu odcięła i nie stroni od krytycznych uwag na ich temat). Podświadomie szuka przerwanej przez laty znajomości z byłą przyjaciółką. Zazdrości siostrze. Tęskni za dawnym życiem, które dzięki rodzicom plasowało się na duużo wyższym poziomie. Brakuje jej żywotności, brakuje jej motywacji, brakuje jej czegoś, co by nią trochę potrząsnęło.
Choć uwielbiam książki opowiadające o niedostatecznie usatysfakcjonowanych z codzienności kobietach, tak nie umiałam odnaleźć się w życiu Elisabeth. Nie pomogła również narracja Lynn Steger Strong, która w pewnym momencie zaczęła mnie nużyć. Zabrakło mi środka w tej opowieści, jakiegoś punktu, który oddałby mi początkowe zainteresowanie. Czegoś, co zabrałoby wrażenie wtórności. Zabrakło podstaw potrzebnych zrozumieniu i empatii - nie polubiłam się z Elisabeth i raczej szybko o niej zapomnę.
Choć nie nadawałyśmy na tych samych falach to po "Niedostatek" i tak warto sięgnąć - szczególnie, jeśli lubi się opowieści oscylujące wokół macierzyństwa, niespełnienia, pragnienia, zagubienia, niedoskonałości. Dla mnie to taka powieść na 3 gwiazdki (w skali Goodreadsowej, czyli na 5). Czyli OKEJ, choć bliższej relacji nie było i nie będzie.
"Niedostatek" opowiada o 34-letniej kobiecie zagubionej w swojej codzienności, wyczerpanej, zrezygnowanej. Elisabeth ma męża, dwójkę dzieci, pracę nauczycielki, dysfunkcyjną relację z rodzicami, bieganie jako formę oddechu od rzeczywistości i dużo niezdecydowania. Pragnie, choć sama nie wie czego. Razem z mężem jest zmuszona ogłosić bankructwo (ale nie przeszkadza jej to zaciągać się na karcie kredytowej na drobne zachcianki). Spędza mało czasu z (bezimiennymi) dziećmi, bo pracuje w kilku szkołach (trudno jest nazwać ją "ciężko-pracującą", bo pozwala sobie na sporo umyków i delikatnie mówiąc pracy zbyt poważnie nie traktuje). Ma bogatych rodziców i po cichu liczy na ich pomoc w wyjściu z długów (choć sama się od nich kilka lat temu odcięła i nie stroni od krytycznych uwag na ich temat). Podświadomie szuka przerwanej przez laty znajomości z byłą przyjaciółką. Zazdrości siostrze. Tęskni za dawnym życiem, które dzięki rodzicom plasowało się na duużo wyższym poziomie. Brakuje jej żywotności, brakuje jej motywacji, brakuje jej czegoś, co by nią trochę potrząsnęło.
Choć uwielbiam książki opowiadające o niedostatecznie usatysfakcjonowanych z codzienności kobietach, tak nie umiałam odnaleźć się w życiu Elisabeth. Nie pomogła również narracja Lynn Steger Strong, która w pewnym momencie zaczęła mnie nużyć. Zabrakło mi środka w tej opowieści, jakiegoś punktu, który oddałby mi początkowe zainteresowanie. Czegoś, co zabrałoby wrażenie wtórności. Zabrakło podstaw potrzebnych zrozumieniu i empatii - nie polubiłam się z Elisabeth i raczej szybko o niej zapomnę.
Choć nie nadawałyśmy na tych samych falach to po "Niedostatek" i tak warto sięgnąć - szczególnie, jeśli lubi się opowieści oscylujące wokół macierzyństwa, niespełnienia, pragnienia, zagubienia, niedoskonałości. Dla mnie to taka powieść na 3 gwiazdki (w skali Goodreadsowej, czyli na 5). Czyli OKEJ, choć bliższej relacji nie było i nie będzie.
January 7, 2020
This is the book I needed to read. Read it in a single day, but I'm still over here thinking about it. The struggle of being a woman right now is dealt with fiercely but with such finesse. Haven't found something I've connected with this much in a while.
April 3, 2020
On the surface, it would seem like Elizabeth, the heroine of Lynn steger Strong's novel WANT, has the world figured out if she only would stop navel gazing and be thankful for her blessings. Her life is enviable by any measure, but it is Strong's honesty and her ability to present the inner life of this woman so clearly that keeps the reader riveted. Here are the facts -- growing up in Florida, Elizabeth had a privileged childhood, followed by Columbia degrees and a life in Brooklyn, while she teaches in the Bronx and knows Manhattan well enough to jog across the Brooklyn Bridge and back every morning before breakfast. She also has two healthy, adorable girls, and a loving husband. So why does she feel so needy? The title of the book is the first clue -- no matter what they have, they always want more, feel secondary to friends, made to feel inferior by parents, sometimes everything is not enough. Ultimately, I liked Elizabeth enough that I wish I knew her in real life.
June 14, 2020
3.5 stars
Want is a reflection on what people take for granted. Elizabeth, the main character, has a husband and family, and is an educator. Her husband worked in finance before the 2008 Economic Crisis, but has now been working with his hands. As Elizabeth ventures to work each day, she starts to slowly unravel and question her lifestyle. To make matters worse, Elizabeth and her husband are filing for bankruptcy. As mentioned above, this book is like holding up a mirror to the reader and telling them to enjoy what they have, because you'll always want more. At times, I didn't relate to the story much, but then other times it was exactly what I needed.
Want is a reflection on what people take for granted. Elizabeth, the main character, has a husband and family, and is an educator. Her husband worked in finance before the 2008 Economic Crisis, but has now been working with his hands. As Elizabeth ventures to work each day, she starts to slowly unravel and question her lifestyle. To make matters worse, Elizabeth and her husband are filing for bankruptcy. As mentioned above, this book is like holding up a mirror to the reader and telling them to enjoy what they have, because you'll always want more. At times, I didn't relate to the story much, but then other times it was exactly what I needed.
July 3, 2021
My version of a great summer beach read: a harrowing story about people with English degrees slipping into crippling economic distress 🕺🏽
January 1, 2021
Many months ago, before this book was even out, I attended a zoom event with several female authors. I’m certain I attended for someone else whose book I’d already read and loved but all I remember now from the event was hearing Lynn read part of Want. I remember that I liked its domestic-ness and the way it probed at the inner life of a rather ordinary woman in real world, ordinary but difficult circumstances. Basically, I had been looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book for a long time.
It certainly didn’t live up to my expectations. Part of it may be me and part is that I was never really sure about and had not expected the storyline that I would argue is really what the book is about- the friendship between the narrator and her estranged former best friend Sasha. That wasn’t what I was expected or part of a passage the author had read and frankly, there was something about how Sasha is introduced and the slow- too slow- way we are told their history (which still never really explains it) that left me a little off balance through maybe the first half of the book. I was never quite sure what was happening there or what to make of it. At times I even wondered if the narrator was in love with Sasha and I’m still sort of confused. Female friendships are intense, especially when you’re young. I had friendships that had fuzzy boundaries as well but I’m also gay so perhaps I just couldn’t fully relate or was... no, I don’t think I was reading into anything. I know the words that were on the page. So I just... struggled to fully understand what was going on there.
Which may be a flaw of my own yet... I’ve also never had kids or been married or taught or filed for bankruptcy yet had no trouble relating to and understanding those aspects of the story. I think some of the confusion about the friendship is the point even. It just... wasn’t quite what I thought I was getting.
I was also bummed out by the ending of the book. I don’t want to spoil it and hope this doesn’t (so maybe skip this paragraph if you absolutely don’t want even the tiniest hint at a spoiler)- I hated that not only does our narrator do the thing she says she won’t but worse it was a mighty convenient way to wrap up the story and far more cleanly than real life. To say nothing of the fact that it’s a mighty unrealistic ending fir most who have ever found themselves in similar positions. It made what I had hoped was a book about folks of a much more realistic and relatable economic and social class (I’ve read far too many boring books about boring whiny rich people lately...) and the end just guts that. Ugh.
Yet I didn’t hate the story. The author can write and more than that I liked that while the chapters were exceedingly long, they’re made up of many shorter little segments or vignettes which made this a very easy to read book. As disappointing as the ending was, there’s a lot here that is very real life in a way we don’t often see depicted in books. There’s a lot of struggles and emotions and problems written about here that are so utterly human and all the financial struggles are only too real, perhaps this year more than ever. Still, even before the ending, one can’t help but feel as if the narrator is perhaps a little spoiled, a little more privileged than she likes to let on and in ways that show in her actions- ways that aren’t always the most financially responsible. Of course, I don’t know too many people in poverty who don’t occasionally make purchases others may disagree with (and there’s even a level of poverty where ever escaping is impossible but then hey might as well take that trip or buy that thing...) but just... I think it’s that combined with a few other issues.
There’s the weird attention that is big early in the book but completely sputters out to how she’s friends in a weird way with several Black coworkers and while she only teaches at this inner city high school for a year, within months of starting is so certain she understands these Black and Brown students and the ways most white teachers (but not her, she’s a saint) are failing them. Maybe I could’ve bought into that had she have been at the job longer. Instead this character reads like a white guilt fantasy and eh... so if the financial aspects are a portrait of the time maybe these aspects are too but not in a good way. More in a “don’t be that white woke woman” kind of way. It’s rather telling that the only reason Black characters ever show up in this story is to make the white main character look better. And she’s so so exceptional and gets it yet has an Ivy League education and lies to her coworker “friends” about her background. Eh maybe some of it is meant to be taken this way? I just found it cringeworthy and oof what I just said- Black characters only exist in this story to make the white narrator look better- is frustratingly true. I wonder does the author realize what she’s even done? Wrote her character so woke yet made her a total white savior trope. It’s not a great look. Especially given that wokeness the character thinks she has. It’s even more pretentious than the endless literary references that our author is sure to keep just a little obscure and mostly female so as to make some kind of statement that just reads as more pretension and this eye roll worthy sort of wokeness. And all of this felt wildly unnecessary and like side threads that never actually wrap into or have any connection to the main story being told.
I didn’t hate this book. It wasn’t what I thought. I didn’t even hate feeling so off balance about the friendship aspect I mentioned. But I also definitely didn’t love the book. I’m not even sure I liked it. Maybe a weird mix of a very proficient writer who made some bad or questionable choices or whose work just missed the mark for me. I’m not sure. I’m also not all that sure even now what was being said about that friendship or what it’s purpose fully was. I feel like the story peters out. The financial woes are solved in the most unrealistically neat little bow way and this friendship narrative... I’m certain the author intended some larger point I’m not quite getting. There’s a lot of loose threads and they don’t ever really pull together, in my opinion.
And one last side note- what is up with this trend of never naming our narrators or more than that, suddenly dropping a name in towards the very end. The last book I finished did this too. This one drops the name in the second to last page. For what? As a book reviewer especially, it’s annoying as all heck and I’ve almost never seen a reason to do it. Certainly not here. But then eh, I guess it’s just one more trendy trick this author tossed out into her novel and another thread that never comes together.
It certainly didn’t live up to my expectations. Part of it may be me and part is that I was never really sure about and had not expected the storyline that I would argue is really what the book is about- the friendship between the narrator and her estranged former best friend Sasha. That wasn’t what I was expected or part of a passage the author had read and frankly, there was something about how Sasha is introduced and the slow- too slow- way we are told their history (which still never really explains it) that left me a little off balance through maybe the first half of the book. I was never quite sure what was happening there or what to make of it. At times I even wondered if the narrator was in love with Sasha and I’m still sort of confused. Female friendships are intense, especially when you’re young. I had friendships that had fuzzy boundaries as well but I’m also gay so perhaps I just couldn’t fully relate or was... no, I don’t think I was reading into anything. I know the words that were on the page. So I just... struggled to fully understand what was going on there.
Which may be a flaw of my own yet... I’ve also never had kids or been married or taught or filed for bankruptcy yet had no trouble relating to and understanding those aspects of the story. I think some of the confusion about the friendship is the point even. It just... wasn’t quite what I thought I was getting.
I was also bummed out by the ending of the book. I don’t want to spoil it and hope this doesn’t (so maybe skip this paragraph if you absolutely don’t want even the tiniest hint at a spoiler)- I hated that not only does our narrator do the thing she says she won’t but worse it was a mighty convenient way to wrap up the story and far more cleanly than real life. To say nothing of the fact that it’s a mighty unrealistic ending fir most who have ever found themselves in similar positions. It made what I had hoped was a book about folks of a much more realistic and relatable economic and social class (I’ve read far too many boring books about boring whiny rich people lately...) and the end just guts that. Ugh.
Yet I didn’t hate the story. The author can write and more than that I liked that while the chapters were exceedingly long, they’re made up of many shorter little segments or vignettes which made this a very easy to read book. As disappointing as the ending was, there’s a lot here that is very real life in a way we don’t often see depicted in books. There’s a lot of struggles and emotions and problems written about here that are so utterly human and all the financial struggles are only too real, perhaps this year more than ever. Still, even before the ending, one can’t help but feel as if the narrator is perhaps a little spoiled, a little more privileged than she likes to let on and in ways that show in her actions- ways that aren’t always the most financially responsible. Of course, I don’t know too many people in poverty who don’t occasionally make purchases others may disagree with (and there’s even a level of poverty where ever escaping is impossible but then hey might as well take that trip or buy that thing...) but just... I think it’s that combined with a few other issues.
There’s the weird attention that is big early in the book but completely sputters out to how she’s friends in a weird way with several Black coworkers and while she only teaches at this inner city high school for a year, within months of starting is so certain she understands these Black and Brown students and the ways most white teachers (but not her, she’s a saint) are failing them. Maybe I could’ve bought into that had she have been at the job longer. Instead this character reads like a white guilt fantasy and eh... so if the financial aspects are a portrait of the time maybe these aspects are too but not in a good way. More in a “don’t be that white woke woman” kind of way. It’s rather telling that the only reason Black characters ever show up in this story is to make the white main character look better. And she’s so so exceptional and gets it yet has an Ivy League education and lies to her coworker “friends” about her background. Eh maybe some of it is meant to be taken this way? I just found it cringeworthy and oof what I just said- Black characters only exist in this story to make the white narrator look better- is frustratingly true. I wonder does the author realize what she’s even done? Wrote her character so woke yet made her a total white savior trope. It’s not a great look. Especially given that wokeness the character thinks she has. It’s even more pretentious than the endless literary references that our author is sure to keep just a little obscure and mostly female so as to make some kind of statement that just reads as more pretension and this eye roll worthy sort of wokeness. And all of this felt wildly unnecessary and like side threads that never actually wrap into or have any connection to the main story being told.
I didn’t hate this book. It wasn’t what I thought. I didn’t even hate feeling so off balance about the friendship aspect I mentioned. But I also definitely didn’t love the book. I’m not even sure I liked it. Maybe a weird mix of a very proficient writer who made some bad or questionable choices or whose work just missed the mark for me. I’m not sure. I’m also not all that sure even now what was being said about that friendship or what it’s purpose fully was. I feel like the story peters out. The financial woes are solved in the most unrealistically neat little bow way and this friendship narrative... I’m certain the author intended some larger point I’m not quite getting. There’s a lot of loose threads and they don’t ever really pull together, in my opinion.
And one last side note- what is up with this trend of never naming our narrators or more than that, suddenly dropping a name in towards the very end. The last book I finished did this too. This one drops the name in the second to last page. For what? As a book reviewer especially, it’s annoying as all heck and I’ve almost never seen a reason to do it. Certainly not here. But then eh, I guess it’s just one more trendy trick this author tossed out into her novel and another thread that never comes together.
February 22, 2021
I wanted to be meaner about this book than I’m going to be but as I read more of it I sort of started to see what the author was trying to do with it. Honestly I was going to review this on my blog but for some reason I feel like I can’t anymore so these are just my random thoughts.
This took me forever to read and I didn’t like it. Absolutely nothing happened in this book at all, it was super vague and surface-level about everything. The writing style was borderline bad except that I think it was intentional which honestly might be even worse.
What exactly was the point of italicizing all the dialogue? I would love to know. Also why all the book name dropping? Why did half of the characters go unnamed? Why?
I gained nothing from this book and it was really disappointing because the synopsis sounded so good. I hope the next book I read is better.
This took me forever to read and I didn’t like it. Absolutely nothing happened in this book at all, it was super vague and surface-level about everything. The writing style was borderline bad except that I think it was intentional which honestly might be even worse.
What exactly was the point of italicizing all the dialogue? I would love to know. Also why all the book name dropping? Why did half of the characters go unnamed? Why?
I gained nothing from this book and it was really disappointing because the synopsis sounded so good. I hope the next book I read is better.
October 23, 2022
Nie przepadam za powieściami pisanymi suchymi zdaniami, z dystansu, z bólu, z bezradności (z niedostatku?). A tutaj to "bycie za szkłem" było największą wartością; i jeszcze perspektywa (amerykańskich) millenialsów, którzy nigdy już nie będą tacy, jak ich rodzice - bo pewien złoty, cudowny, dostateczny (z pewnością gospodarczo, pod pozłotkiem chyba również emocjonalnie), bo pewien odpowiedni moment już minął. Widać w tym ślady i powiewy własnych moich (naszych?) rozczarowań, cienie naszego nie-dość w tak wielu aspektach. Bardzo dobra proza, szanuję literackie korzenie autorki - odnoszę się do tego jak w pysk strzelił. Jeśli nie stać Was na kredyt mieszkaniowy, rata obciąża jednak za bardzo albo ostatnio ordynarnie wzrosła - polecam.
July 24, 2020
Full review to come on Book Nation by Jen.
March 17, 2021
I wanted to like this. I wanted this to be shorter. I wanted it to go somewhere. I wanted to like the main character. I really really wanted it to be over.
August 31, 2021
I fucking loved this which probably means everyone else won’t like it
July 24, 2020
While I’m not a novelist, I am an avid reader. This book had so many rave reviews; none of which even make sense to me after reading Want. Even looking at the back cover I’m wondering if the reviewers even read the same book I did. It wasn’t about anything really. I struggled to find connections from one paragraph to the next. There was no depth to the characters, their stories, their experiences. Information the protagonist writes often contradicted itself such as saying she works full time during the week, and her husband works weekends to avoid childcare they can’t afford. But, the author goes on to discuss the children who are 4 and 2 going to ‘school’ all during the week. At that age isn’t that childcare/daycare? She even mentions how they have to pay for the school they can’t really afford. Complete contradiction. The author also uses unrealistic language for the 2 year old toddler who apparently speaks in full sentences and articulates herself as that of a school age child, yet still nurses. SMH. I even flipped back on pages to make sure I read certain paragraphs thoroughly. I continued to read hoping there would be some point to this novel. It is about mental health? It is about feminism? Is it about a lost friendship? At one point I even thought maybe it was about the protagonist’s sexual attraction to her estranged childhood best friend and that eventually the reader would learn she was living a double life. In the end, it never got to any point. Up to the very last page you will be left wondering if you will ever figure out what the storyline here is trying convey. The grammar was even confusing at times coming across as nonsensical. This book lacked any sort of plot, climatic storyline, or any point really. Save your $25.99 and read something with depth.
July 12, 2020
The protagonist of this novel is smart, a good mother and teacher, but also is depressed, financially insecure, and at times self-sabotaging. She and her husband must declare bankruptcy at the beginning of the story and their security teeters on the brink of collapse. As she's working two jobs (as an adjunct professor and as a high school teacher at a corporate-owned charter school that believes its sole purpose is test preparation), she spends a great deal of time ruminating on a past friendship with Sasha, her closest friend from high school. So the narrative switches back and forth in time and the pivotal moments of both time periods come into focus.
The chief concern of this story is how what people want drives their behavior. For this character, she wants to be understood and refuses to stretch or perform beyond her own limits to break away from the problems that weigh so heavily. She wants her parents to love and forgive her; she wants her husband to accept her while many times hiding key information about her mental state from him; she wants to teach her high school students how to think and the joy of learning; and she enjoys the unconditional love she receives from her daughters. She also struggles to find an ethical balance in the midst of this personal crisis.
While this is not a happy novel, it is honest and does a lot to pick apart the false hopes we have that everything will always turn out in the end.
The chief concern of this story is how what people want drives their behavior. For this character, she wants to be understood and refuses to stretch or perform beyond her own limits to break away from the problems that weigh so heavily. She wants her parents to love and forgive her; she wants her husband to accept her while many times hiding key information about her mental state from him; she wants to teach her high school students how to think and the joy of learning; and she enjoys the unconditional love she receives from her daughters. She also struggles to find an ethical balance in the midst of this personal crisis.
While this is not a happy novel, it is honest and does a lot to pick apart the false hopes we have that everything will always turn out in the end.
December 27, 2019
WANT is a novel that situates the reader under the skin of a mother of two with a PhD, too many teaching jobs, fractured relationships with her parents and friends, a husband struggling to build a business, and pending bankruptcy. It’s wrenching and fevered and loving. I felt like I was living in this book as the challenges and setbacks piled up again and again without much reprieve. This layered feeling of constant anxiety pushes at the fraught limits of love, ambition, success, and desire. Her heroine reveals how hard it is to survive in our modern life—even when you grew up with considerable privilege and professional advantages. And even if all we do is try to survive, we’re subject to the powerful desires of others (not only thanks to other people but capitalism with its large scale framework centered around profit, desire, and want). Also, in spite of everything, we also remain subject to our own desires—friendships without closure, intellectual and cultural needs, romance, the harmony of a community, nursing a child you don’t see enough of, the need to please, the ache of making others proud, the profound desire of being seen. It’s also a compulsive read which I fully expected given that I inhaled Lynn’s first novel HOLD STILL four years ago. She’s mined a very real nerve and this book is going to connect with so many readers.
January 28, 2021
There has to be a German word for the experience of reading a book you wish you had written slash had the mind to write. This glorious novel is checking all the boxes for me: it's about the struggle to be a creative person in a professional setting, the financial strain of the same, motherhood, monogamy, depression and strained family relationships. And friendship that verges on the romantic. Highly recommend.
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