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The Address Book
Editor Alicia Baer, agonizing over an attractive job offer which would require her to live apart from her husband and teenaged daughter, discovers in her address book five new names, unknown to her but written in her handwriting
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
17 people want to read
About the author
Anne Bernays
45 books6 followersAnne Bernays is a novelist and writing teacher. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous major publications, among them The Nation, The New York Times, Town & Country, and Sports Illustrated. She lives in Cambridge and Truro, Massachusetts with her husband, Justin Kaplan.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 19, 2009
I'm not sure what to say about this book. So I'm going to just talk about the plot until I can figure out what the hell is going on. I read it quite a while ago so I'm not sure if I remember it very clearly.
So there's the woman (whose name I forgot) who is an editor. She is married with a teenage daughter, and works from home so she can be close to her daughter. Which is strange because her daughter doesn't really want to spend much time with her. I think it's because she's a teenager, or maybe there's something there.
Anyway, our protagonist losses her address book at a restaurant and promptly FREAKS OUT!!! Thats the first cue some thing is up with her. I mean she really gets upset over an address book! She gets way more upset than I do when I lose my cell phone. Why is the book so important? She is obsessed with finding it. Eventually it is found in the restroom at a the restaurant. Our hero thinks this is very odd as she never used the restroom on her last visit (who cares? She got her damn book back right? Maybe someone else found it and left it in there!) Her book feels strange and foreign to her. I've never known anyone to spend so much time touching an address book so that it feel 'strange' to the touch, this is really bizarre to me. Continuing her bizarre obsession, our brave hero apparently reads THE ENTIRE BOOK because she notices 5 names that apparently weren't in there before. Who cares! Maybe she forgot about some of her old contacts! There's tons of people in my email address book that I can't recall. Hell I can't even remember half of my facebook friends. Does this woman like read her address book everyday, so that she must know the book really well to identify people she doesn't know suddenly appearing in her book? She immediately begins to formulate four different ridiculous possibilities of how these 5 names got into her book. All of seem insane, the best one is that she is crazy and has a whole double life she has blocked out of her consciousness. (What about you forgot some old friends? What about someone is playing a trick on you? What about you have the wrong address book?) Apparently this is true.
She begins calling the strange new people in her book, all whom apparently know her. The first is this really annoying pathetic girl she knew in college who is really pouty but loves art. Another is some guy she is having sex with. The last one is her former lesbian lover. She has no memory of any of these people, but they certainly know her. That's all I remember. What is this book about? Can someone, anyone help me out here? Are these different sides of herself? Is this just a thrilling mystery novel with a crazy editing protagonist? Perhaps these are all novels she is reading for work. What the hell is going on?
So there's the woman (whose name I forgot) who is an editor. She is married with a teenage daughter, and works from home so she can be close to her daughter. Which is strange because her daughter doesn't really want to spend much time with her. I think it's because she's a teenager, or maybe there's something there.
Anyway, our protagonist losses her address book at a restaurant and promptly FREAKS OUT!!! Thats the first cue some thing is up with her. I mean she really gets upset over an address book! She gets way more upset than I do when I lose my cell phone. Why is the book so important? She is obsessed with finding it. Eventually it is found in the restroom at a the restaurant. Our hero thinks this is very odd as she never used the restroom on her last visit (who cares? She got her damn book back right? Maybe someone else found it and left it in there!) Her book feels strange and foreign to her. I've never known anyone to spend so much time touching an address book so that it feel 'strange' to the touch, this is really bizarre to me. Continuing her bizarre obsession, our brave hero apparently reads THE ENTIRE BOOK because she notices 5 names that apparently weren't in there before. Who cares! Maybe she forgot about some of her old contacts! There's tons of people in my email address book that I can't recall. Hell I can't even remember half of my facebook friends. Does this woman like read her address book everyday, so that she must know the book really well to identify people she doesn't know suddenly appearing in her book? She immediately begins to formulate four different ridiculous possibilities of how these 5 names got into her book. All of seem insane, the best one is that she is crazy and has a whole double life she has blocked out of her consciousness. (What about you forgot some old friends? What about someone is playing a trick on you? What about you have the wrong address book?) Apparently this is true.
She begins calling the strange new people in her book, all whom apparently know her. The first is this really annoying pathetic girl she knew in college who is really pouty but loves art. Another is some guy she is having sex with. The last one is her former lesbian lover. She has no memory of any of these people, but they certainly know her. That's all I remember. What is this book about? Can someone, anyone help me out here? Are these different sides of herself? Is this just a thrilling mystery novel with a crazy editing protagonist? Perhaps these are all novels she is reading for work. What the hell is going on?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 17, 2017
Ummmm...what? Did the author write herself into a corner or what? I’m so confused
February 24, 2025
Not my favorite book. She made a separate world in her mind to help her cope with life.
May 22, 2013
a tragic disappointment
December 6, 2015
Forced myself just to find out what the characters issue was...then read the last page...turned it and said "what"? "the end"?
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews