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Something Blue
On the morning of her wedding day, Katherine flees to the home of her old college friend Lucy, who reluctantly agrees to put her up, in a story about women who must learn to know one another again
- GenresFictionContemporary
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
23 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Ann Hood
73 books1,274 followersAnn Hood is the editor of Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting and the bestselling author of The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, Comfort, and An Italian Wife, among other works. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, a Best American Food Writing Award, a Best American Travel Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
June 24, 2014
This was originally published in 1991, so the pop culture references are dated and there is a definite sense of it being an early, less polished work (I had a similar experience when I picked up Lionel Shriver’s reissued A Perfectly Good Family). Still, this novel has Hood’s trademark emotional insight, albeit with a bit more of a chick-lit feel than in later novels. It reminded me most of Linda Yellin’s What Nora Knew (and, indeed, some of the earlier Nora Ephron/Meg Ryan comedies set in New York).
The main characters here are three 30-year-old girlfriends. Katherine fled on the morning of her wedding (thus the wedding connotation of the title), afraid she’d be settling by becoming a boring Connecticut dermatologist’s wife. Lucy was Katherine’s college roommate but they drifted apart (I kept waiting to hear in a flashback about some major bust-up to explain the chill between them, but alas, it never came); she is dating Jasper, a failed dancer, and conducting Whirlwind Weekend tours of Europe for provincial Americans while working on her career as a children’s book illustrator. And finally, Julia, a native New Yorker, lives an entirely temporary existence: she bounces between short-term subletting contracts, does temp jobs, and has one foreign lover after another.
All of the characters (including Jasper) are unaccountably blue. Life is not living up to their expectations; they are unsure what the future holds, and often too afraid to do what they really want to do. “Lucy wishes she had been born ten years earlier or ten years later. Either way, things would have been simpler…As it is, she’s caught somewhere between these two places. She feels she has missed out. There is no certainty for her.” I could empathize with such feelings of angst. Although I think Hood’s more recent fiction is much wiser and more subtle, it is still fun to catch up on her back catalogue.
The main characters here are three 30-year-old girlfriends. Katherine fled on the morning of her wedding (thus the wedding connotation of the title), afraid she’d be settling by becoming a boring Connecticut dermatologist’s wife. Lucy was Katherine’s college roommate but they drifted apart (I kept waiting to hear in a flashback about some major bust-up to explain the chill between them, but alas, it never came); she is dating Jasper, a failed dancer, and conducting Whirlwind Weekend tours of Europe for provincial Americans while working on her career as a children’s book illustrator. And finally, Julia, a native New Yorker, lives an entirely temporary existence: she bounces between short-term subletting contracts, does temp jobs, and has one foreign lover after another.
All of the characters (including Jasper) are unaccountably blue. Life is not living up to their expectations; they are unsure what the future holds, and often too afraid to do what they really want to do. “Lucy wishes she had been born ten years earlier or ten years later. Either way, things would have been simpler…As it is, she’s caught somewhere between these two places. She feels she has missed out. There is no certainty for her.” I could empathize with such feelings of angst. Although I think Hood’s more recent fiction is much wiser and more subtle, it is still fun to catch up on her back catalogue.
January 16, 2012
A long, long time ago, Seventeen magazine used to publish the most beautiful short stories by up and coming authors. Amy Tan. Jodi Picoult. Joyce Carol Oates. I cut out most of those stories and still have them to this day in neat plastic page protectors to remind me how important reading was, and still is. And one of my favorites of those stories was Frederica, the Beautiful, by Ann Hood. It was so lovely I rushed out to get her new book, Something Blue. It is a layered story about women who are feeling their way through relationships that don't quite fit right. And in each of their own ways, Something Blue creeps into them, and they either live with this malaise or shake it off in favor of a new path. A medium quick read, and while the language isn't her best, the characters are warm and compelling.
July 28, 2022
It took me a while to get into the book, but the three main characters, who were all young women trying to build ideal lives for themselves in New York, all had interesting stories! They showed that if you overthink your life, you may be holding yourself back from being happy! There was a lot of discourse about how confusing love is too — is it illogical to ask for both passion and companionship in a partner?
July 27, 2016
I have first discovered Ann Hood through her newest book; "The Knitting Circle" and immediately fell in love with her ease of creating a written world that beckoned me to come back to it. After having such a good experience with her work I decided to hunt down her older books to see her evolution as a writer and to read all that she has to offer. I must say that "Something Blue" was not a disappointment and I have so far purchased three more of her books and am eagerly awaiting their arrival.
Ann Hood writes about women. She creates mothers, sisters, wives, friends and girlfriends who think things I have thought, who have the same questions and dilemmas and most of all, women who never give up. Through the trails and tribulations of their careers and relationships I feel the ocean wide world of wisdom passing through my mind, creating scenarios and giving me answers, making me think of what choices I would pick if I was in those situations. She is clearly an author with many things to say, crating books that beg to be read until the sky turns dark and then red and yellow as the sun comes back up, making me want to read until the book has no more words left and the back cover softly closes on her latest adventure.
"Something Blue" is not a cookie cutter story about girls who want a boyfriend and eternal happiness that is delivered thorough shopping and gossiping. It is a story about three childhood friends whose paths cross around their thirtieth year of celebrating womanhood. The all end up in NYC for various reasons, making the reader feel like a New Yorker without having to actually experience it every day. I have the pleasure of living her since I was twelve but these girls have not and it was very nteresting to see their adjustments and struggles to make it in love and in the career world of the city that truly never sleeps.
Lucy is a children's book illustrator waiting to be discovered in the art world, tired of having to work odd jobs such as her Whirlwind Weekend getaways that take tourists to European destination such as London, Rome, Paris or Milan one weekend at a time. Her only comfort is coming back home to the smell of Turkey roasting in the oven with Grand Mariner stuffing made by her dancer turned bartender boyfriend Jasper. She is very close to her childhood friend Julia, a woman who is an aspiring actress who can never land a role and who lives in other people's apartments when they go away for long period of times. She also loves to lie about where she's from, changing her whole life history on a whim as she picks up exotic men whom she will stop seeing after she gets all that she wants form them under the sheets. She is so good at discarding and moving that the trail of lies she leaves behind is starting to catch up to her, making her feel empty on the inside. Being best friends and close neighbors their relationship is intruded by Katherine, a bride to be who runs away from her Connecticut home the morning of her wedding and who decides to show up at her old school friend's apartment. The door she comes to is Lucy's and the friend is anything but thrilled to have someone form he past appears so abruptly.
All these women have conflicts not only with each other and where they stand in time but with their mothers, boyfriends, ex fiancées and coworkers. At the beginning of the book the reader can feel a big storm brewing. Lucy is disappointed how Jasper gives up on his dancing, failing auditions, feeling like the fires of his passions are dying out with him, she starts to feel herself change, not knowing whether her security in her relationship is because she loves him or because she's rather stay with him than be alone. Julia's life is rich with made up stories about her Italian mother and how she is an Opera singer, wooing men whom she meets at bars and places she knows will never tie her to them permanently. When one day she meets a handsome delivery man, she starts to wonder if her pattern of deceit will embrace him or whether she will have to admit her hear is going to have to force her to tell the truth to him, her friends and most of all to herself. And last but not least is the story of Katherine, probably my favorite, as she escapes a relationship that was boring and suffocating her, to a total life change of dating men other than her one and only lover Andy, to see for herself what she has been missing out on. The novel takes a year to cycle thought their period of being together and shows growth and inspiration, while their hearts and minds are stuck on the past arguments and trying to fit in, lingering on the pretend world of being happy that was more blue than pink.
This book was magnificent with so much more happening, surprising considering how long this review came out, but I promise there are so many things going on that the reader never gets bored and feel like they are reading a mystery that has a fantastic and quite frankly some very surprising ending. Some things come full circle but others are changed forever, feelings un-caged and left free and no longer sad and blue.
Ann Hood writes about women. She creates mothers, sisters, wives, friends and girlfriends who think things I have thought, who have the same questions and dilemmas and most of all, women who never give up. Through the trails and tribulations of their careers and relationships I feel the ocean wide world of wisdom passing through my mind, creating scenarios and giving me answers, making me think of what choices I would pick if I was in those situations. She is clearly an author with many things to say, crating books that beg to be read until the sky turns dark and then red and yellow as the sun comes back up, making me want to read until the book has no more words left and the back cover softly closes on her latest adventure.
"Something Blue" is not a cookie cutter story about girls who want a boyfriend and eternal happiness that is delivered thorough shopping and gossiping. It is a story about three childhood friends whose paths cross around their thirtieth year of celebrating womanhood. The all end up in NYC for various reasons, making the reader feel like a New Yorker without having to actually experience it every day. I have the pleasure of living her since I was twelve but these girls have not and it was very nteresting to see their adjustments and struggles to make it in love and in the career world of the city that truly never sleeps.
Lucy is a children's book illustrator waiting to be discovered in the art world, tired of having to work odd jobs such as her Whirlwind Weekend getaways that take tourists to European destination such as London, Rome, Paris or Milan one weekend at a time. Her only comfort is coming back home to the smell of Turkey roasting in the oven with Grand Mariner stuffing made by her dancer turned bartender boyfriend Jasper. She is very close to her childhood friend Julia, a woman who is an aspiring actress who can never land a role and who lives in other people's apartments when they go away for long period of times. She also loves to lie about where she's from, changing her whole life history on a whim as she picks up exotic men whom she will stop seeing after she gets all that she wants form them under the sheets. She is so good at discarding and moving that the trail of lies she leaves behind is starting to catch up to her, making her feel empty on the inside. Being best friends and close neighbors their relationship is intruded by Katherine, a bride to be who runs away from her Connecticut home the morning of her wedding and who decides to show up at her old school friend's apartment. The door she comes to is Lucy's and the friend is anything but thrilled to have someone form he past appears so abruptly.
All these women have conflicts not only with each other and where they stand in time but with their mothers, boyfriends, ex fiancées and coworkers. At the beginning of the book the reader can feel a big storm brewing. Lucy is disappointed how Jasper gives up on his dancing, failing auditions, feeling like the fires of his passions are dying out with him, she starts to feel herself change, not knowing whether her security in her relationship is because she loves him or because she's rather stay with him than be alone. Julia's life is rich with made up stories about her Italian mother and how she is an Opera singer, wooing men whom she meets at bars and places she knows will never tie her to them permanently. When one day she meets a handsome delivery man, she starts to wonder if her pattern of deceit will embrace him or whether she will have to admit her hear is going to have to force her to tell the truth to him, her friends and most of all to herself. And last but not least is the story of Katherine, probably my favorite, as she escapes a relationship that was boring and suffocating her, to a total life change of dating men other than her one and only lover Andy, to see for herself what she has been missing out on. The novel takes a year to cycle thought their period of being together and shows growth and inspiration, while their hearts and minds are stuck on the past arguments and trying to fit in, lingering on the pretend world of being happy that was more blue than pink.
This book was magnificent with so much more happening, surprising considering how long this review came out, but I promise there are so many things going on that the reader never gets bored and feel like they are reading a mystery that has a fantastic and quite frankly some very surprising ending. Some things come full circle but others are changed forever, feelings un-caged and left free and no longer sad and blue.
Read
July 23, 2022Zero stars
I usually love Ann Hood but this book is horrible. Insipid, flat characters going nowhere.
Skip it.
I usually love Ann Hood but this book is horrible. Insipid, flat characters going nowhere.
Skip it.
March 6, 2014
This book follows the lives of Lucy, Katherine, and Julia, as they try to figure out what they want from life and how to get it. Lucy has been with Jasper for years but isn’t very happy, Katherine is about to get married but isn’t very happy, and Julia lives her life through lies and, you’ve guessed it, isn’t very happy - in fact you could say they all feel blue. We watch the three girls as they try to get along with each other and stumble through life, on a road towards happiness.
Lucy and Katherine were friends in college but haven’t really spoken in years which is why I found it so weird that Katherine would turn up on her doorstep. That being said, I can understand why she wants to try and go back to a time when she was happy and that was when Lucy was still in her life. Lucy, however, has moved on and become best friends with Julia, wanting to leave her past strictly in the past. She’s not happy with the person that she was then but, then again, she doesn’t appear to be happy with the person that she is now. She feels like she’s stuck in a rut; she isn’t happy with her boyfriend or her job.
All three characters find it hard to adjust after Katherine turns up; Katherine finds it hard to accept that Lucy has changed and they’re not the close friends they once were, she also finds it hard to be around Lucy and Julia because it reminds her of what she and Lucy once had – friendship. Julia finds it hard because she doesn’t really like Katherine and there are moments when she nearly reveals her lies. Finally, Lucy finds it hard because she is constantly reminded of the past she’d rather forget thanks to Katherine’s appearance.
I don’t really know what to say about this story. I understand that it focuses on the three women’s lives and that we watch them as they try to get where they want to be in life and work out what they want… I just don’t feel there was much of a story to pad it out. It was a great, easy read but it felt like there could have been so much more to it. I would have liked there to have been more of a story behind it all.
I like that the characters do eventually get where they want to be, with who they want to be and it’s nice to read a book where the characters have the same ‘what if’s’ as people do in real life. It’s a very believable book in terms of characters, although I feel that Julia is an exaggerated version of how her character would be in reality.
One thing I took away from this book was that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and that you can’t bury your past by running away (which is what Lucy did). It will come back and haunt you somehow although, for Lucy, that worked out fine.
As it was written in third person, I struggled to feel connected with the characters. That’s very much a personal thing to me as I know plenty of people that connect better with third person. It just made me feel like I was an outsider, trying to befriend a group of females who didn’t want to know. Then again, in hindsight, maybe that was a deliberate act of the authors as that’s how the characters felt the majority of the time.
I would suggest this book to a friend, partly because it’s an easy read but more so I could see if they felt the same way as me about it. I was left wanting more but I’m not sure if it was in a good or a bad way – did I want more in the form of another book or did I want more from the book I’d just read? It’s hard to say.
Lucy and Katherine were friends in college but haven’t really spoken in years which is why I found it so weird that Katherine would turn up on her doorstep. That being said, I can understand why she wants to try and go back to a time when she was happy and that was when Lucy was still in her life. Lucy, however, has moved on and become best friends with Julia, wanting to leave her past strictly in the past. She’s not happy with the person that she was then but, then again, she doesn’t appear to be happy with the person that she is now. She feels like she’s stuck in a rut; she isn’t happy with her boyfriend or her job.
All three characters find it hard to adjust after Katherine turns up; Katherine finds it hard to accept that Lucy has changed and they’re not the close friends they once were, she also finds it hard to be around Lucy and Julia because it reminds her of what she and Lucy once had – friendship. Julia finds it hard because she doesn’t really like Katherine and there are moments when she nearly reveals her lies. Finally, Lucy finds it hard because she is constantly reminded of the past she’d rather forget thanks to Katherine’s appearance.
I don’t really know what to say about this story. I understand that it focuses on the three women’s lives and that we watch them as they try to get where they want to be in life and work out what they want… I just don’t feel there was much of a story to pad it out. It was a great, easy read but it felt like there could have been so much more to it. I would have liked there to have been more of a story behind it all.
I like that the characters do eventually get where they want to be, with who they want to be and it’s nice to read a book where the characters have the same ‘what if’s’ as people do in real life. It’s a very believable book in terms of characters, although I feel that Julia is an exaggerated version of how her character would be in reality.
One thing I took away from this book was that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and that you can’t bury your past by running away (which is what Lucy did). It will come back and haunt you somehow although, for Lucy, that worked out fine.
As it was written in third person, I struggled to feel connected with the characters. That’s very much a personal thing to me as I know plenty of people that connect better with third person. It just made me feel like I was an outsider, trying to befriend a group of females who didn’t want to know. Then again, in hindsight, maybe that was a deliberate act of the authors as that’s how the characters felt the majority of the time.
I would suggest this book to a friend, partly because it’s an easy read but more so I could see if they felt the same way as me about it. I was left wanting more but I’m not sure if it was in a good or a bad way – did I want more in the form of another book or did I want more from the book I’d just read? It’s hard to say.
March 2, 2014
Loved Ann Hood's The Knitting Circle and The Red Thread... then tried Places to Stay the Night (also by Ann Hood) thought it was fairly average so I thought I'd try another early book of hers and picked up this one... so disappointed again! Very unlikeable characters, storyline very very average, honestly I implore readers who try this and find it quite terrible, please still try her later novels! The Red Thread honestly feels like it's written by a completely different person!
July 29, 2019
Apparently I read this in 2014 and never updated my review here on Netgalley! Deepest apologies, but here you go.
This book is about the lives of 3 women, Lucy, Katherine, and Julia. Theyre all at different places in their lives, romantic and otherwise, yet they come back together after years when Katherine shows up on Lucy's doorstep. I can't remember why I rated this 3 stars. The characters were interesting, but there was no huge action in it.
This book is about the lives of 3 women, Lucy, Katherine, and Julia. Theyre all at different places in their lives, romantic and otherwise, yet they come back together after years when Katherine shows up on Lucy's doorstep. I can't remember why I rated this 3 stars. The characters were interesting, but there was no huge action in it.
April 15, 2020
Definite a chick-lit story of three young women in NYC trying to figure things out. Watched a Ted Talk by the author that was inspirational and wanted to see how she writes. Available as a hoopla book from our Yuma library.
April 13, 2020
Fiction
April 26, 2020
Audible
October 24, 2025
interesting characters and storyline
May 31, 2025
Idk but I liked it
May 17, 2025
I wish I enjoyed the characters more but they all seemed very annoying to me, especially Katherine. I could see what the author was trying to convey with all of them unsure of who they are and what they wanted out of their lives. However, they had no aspirations and direction so I felt like Katherine was just having a pity party.
February 22, 2014
I received an ARC copy of "Something Blue" from the Publisher and Author through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.
Since I have not read this author previously, I had no expectations. I found myself enjoying this story about 3 young women in their early 30's. Lucy is in a relationship with Jasper, Julia house/apartment sits and picks up random men, and Katherine finds herself not wanting to marry her fiance and on their wedding day she decides to go to New York. Katherine and Lucy were roommates in college and though did not stay in regular contact with each other, Katherine feels the needs to go to Lucy. Julia and Lucy met when Lucy moved to New York and they became best friends.
This story centers around these 3 women. their emotions, feelings and frustrations. It is a story about young women struggling to find themselves and discover what they want from life. Lucy breaks up with Jasper when she feels confused and is not sure she still loves him. Julia moves on to her next house sitting location and doesn't tell On, her current lover. Katherine leaves her fiance on their wedding day, runs away to New York, she is looking for "something" just not sure what it is.
The story ends with Katherine moving to Boston when she discovers that she really wants to be with Andy. Lucy finally makes it big with her "My Dolly" and she reconnects with Jasper. Julia needs to vacate the apartment she has been house sitting decides to get back with On and leaves for L/A with him when his band gets a gig.
This is an interesting and engaging story to read. There is no real action but the author is such an exceptional writer that her characters are interesting and fun to read. I will be searching out other works by this author and adding them to my TBR list.
Since I have not read this author previously, I had no expectations. I found myself enjoying this story about 3 young women in their early 30's. Lucy is in a relationship with Jasper, Julia house/apartment sits and picks up random men, and Katherine finds herself not wanting to marry her fiance and on their wedding day she decides to go to New York. Katherine and Lucy were roommates in college and though did not stay in regular contact with each other, Katherine feels the needs to go to Lucy. Julia and Lucy met when Lucy moved to New York and they became best friends.
This story centers around these 3 women. their emotions, feelings and frustrations. It is a story about young women struggling to find themselves and discover what they want from life. Lucy breaks up with Jasper when she feels confused and is not sure she still loves him. Julia moves on to her next house sitting location and doesn't tell On, her current lover. Katherine leaves her fiance on their wedding day, runs away to New York, she is looking for "something" just not sure what it is.
The story ends with Katherine moving to Boston when she discovers that she really wants to be with Andy. Lucy finally makes it big with her "My Dolly" and she reconnects with Jasper. Julia needs to vacate the apartment she has been house sitting decides to get back with On and leaves for L/A with him when his band gets a gig.
This is an interesting and engaging story to read. There is no real action but the author is such an exceptional writer that her characters are interesting and fun to read. I will be searching out other works by this author and adding them to my TBR list.
January 29, 2014
Something Blue by Ann Hood
This book starts out with Lucy and her boyfriend is Jasper who is trying to hit it big in plays in NYC. They live together and besides Lucy is sketching My Dolly she also does Whirlwind Weekend Tours overseas on weekends.
Katherine in CT was to marry Andy, a doctor but she just can't do it to herself-have to relocate to Boston where they will live and she'll teach, become pregnant and for the rest of her life have dinner parties. She ran away on her wedding day and moves in with Lucy while she finds herself. She's having a blast being a single woman in NYC.
Julia is between jobs, always housesitting for others, in exchange for her to live their lifes, waiting to hit it big in movies. She auditions many times and does part time work, when she can find it. Dates many different types of men and it's steamy to hear what she does with them. She does make jewelry and sells them on the street as a hobby.
I like how each of them has a dream and they follow their heart but there is still a sadness that comes with it. Loved all the places they travel to and the experiences.
I received this book from Net Galley via Open Road Media in exchange for my honest review.
This book starts out with Lucy and her boyfriend is Jasper who is trying to hit it big in plays in NYC. They live together and besides Lucy is sketching My Dolly she also does Whirlwind Weekend Tours overseas on weekends.
Katherine in CT was to marry Andy, a doctor but she just can't do it to herself-have to relocate to Boston where they will live and she'll teach, become pregnant and for the rest of her life have dinner parties. She ran away on her wedding day and moves in with Lucy while she finds herself. She's having a blast being a single woman in NYC.
Julia is between jobs, always housesitting for others, in exchange for her to live their lifes, waiting to hit it big in movies. She auditions many times and does part time work, when she can find it. Dates many different types of men and it's steamy to hear what she does with them. She does make jewelry and sells them on the street as a hobby.
I like how each of them has a dream and they follow their heart but there is still a sadness that comes with it. Loved all the places they travel to and the experiences.
I received this book from Net Galley via Open Road Media in exchange for my honest review.
March 3, 2014
A while back, I reviewed Ann Hood’s The Knitting Circle. Now, Open Road Media is releasing a number of Ann Hood’s early novels as ebooks and I’ve been asked to review Something Blue, a story about three women living in New York as they must confront those quintessential questions concerning their careers and the men in their lives: how did I get here and where am I going.
Katherine and Lucy were sorority sisters and roommates in college but it’s been a while since they’ve seen one another and they’ve drifted apart. Lucy is living in New York, working as a Whirlwind Weekend tour guide while she strives to make a name for herself as a children’s book illustrator and avoids making a decision in her stalled relationship with aspiring dancer Jasper. She’s the first person Katherine thinks of when she impulsively abandons her life with fiancé Andy and heads for New York. But Katherine soon realizes that it’s not going to be the nostalgic reunion she anticipated as she gets to know Lucy’s new best friend, Julia, an apartment sitter and chameleon who seems to be the epitome of everything she, Katherine, is not.
For the full review, please visit my blog:
http://wp.me/pUEx4-xu
Katherine and Lucy were sorority sisters and roommates in college but it’s been a while since they’ve seen one another and they’ve drifted apart. Lucy is living in New York, working as a Whirlwind Weekend tour guide while she strives to make a name for herself as a children’s book illustrator and avoids making a decision in her stalled relationship with aspiring dancer Jasper. She’s the first person Katherine thinks of when she impulsively abandons her life with fiancé Andy and heads for New York. But Katherine soon realizes that it’s not going to be the nostalgic reunion she anticipated as she gets to know Lucy’s new best friend, Julia, an apartment sitter and chameleon who seems to be the epitome of everything she, Katherine, is not.
For the full review, please visit my blog:
http://wp.me/pUEx4-xu
February 28, 2014
I really enjoyed SOMETHING BLUE by Ann Hood. This is an older one of her books and I must admit not my favorite. I find her current writings to be more powerful with stronger characters. If this book were to be made into a movie I would expect it to be similar to "Sex in the City!" The three women in the book brought an emotional reading experience. This is what Ann Hood does best. I was given a What a chilling thriller. If you enjoy books with creepy settings this is a must read. It truly was a page turner and there was great character development. A very strange set of parents!!! I didn't want it to end but it truly could not have ended more perfectly. I received this ARC from the publisher in return for an honest review. No compensation was received. Don't miss out...digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review. No compensation was received. Although it wasn't my favorite book from this author I would still recommend it. Be sure to read her more current writings... You won't be disappointed.
December 20, 2016
Often a writer's first book is so phenomenal that the next book fails to live up to the expectation.
Here, however, the opposite is true. Hood's work seems better in her later novels.
This first novel, while very readable, lacks the same unique voice of The Red Thread or The Obituary Writer.
Still a very readable novel, but very, very chick flick in style.
Update Dec 19, 2016
Due to a recent glitch in my Nook, this book showed up again. I was sure I had read it, but as I started through the pages only tiny bits and pieces seemed familiar. So I went ahead and read it for the second time.
It was an easy way to calm and brain for an afternoon, but obviously not a memorable book. Like watching a romantic comedy for the second time.
Here, however, the opposite is true. Hood's work seems better in her later novels.
This first novel, while very readable, lacks the same unique voice of The Red Thread or The Obituary Writer.
Still a very readable novel, but very, very chick flick in style.
Update Dec 19, 2016
Due to a recent glitch in my Nook, this book showed up again. I was sure I had read it, but as I started through the pages only tiny bits and pieces seemed familiar. So I went ahead and read it for the second time.
It was an easy way to calm and brain for an afternoon, but obviously not a memorable book. Like watching a romantic comedy for the second time.
July 25, 2007
I am currently on an Ann Hood kick. I had nothing to read one night, and found an old weathered copy of Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine in my room that my mother had given to me. I had read almost half of it by the time I went to bed. I just read Something Blue in about 24 hours. I find her books have the same amount of drama as a chic lit book, but are also very deep. There endings are not cliche in the least, but make you think about them, as if these women making decisions were real people. LIke "Off the Coast of Maine" this deals with three women again, each with different lives. Really great read.
May 6, 2013
Something Blue is a great book by author Ann Hood. This is one of Hood's earlier books. It is the story of three women that knew each other in college. But the main story is some twenty years later although we certainly get an idea of what these women were like in college. I guess one of the things I was thinking through this book was that what we want or think we want in our earlier life is not necessarily what we want in later life. And that we are always learning and revolving. I really think Ann Hood is great. I am certainly on an Ann Hood kick right now. She brings up great issues in a very interesting, fast read.
March 18, 2014
This is a re-release of Ann Hood's novel published in 1992. It centers around 3 girls living in New York City. Katherine has fled her Boston wedding to a Dr. and moves in with Lucy, an illustrator or children's books and a tour guide. Julia is a girl who apartment sits and hold various jobs while living a life filled with lies. As you follow these young women through the book they make choices and decisions about their past and their futures. Slightly predictable, could have used a little updating.
April 27, 2014
This is the story of three young women who are yet to settle happily on their path in life. Their circumstances are all entirely different and yet there are similarities. None of them are really happy and all have different ideas of what will get them there ... but is the grass really greener on the other side? That's what we find out.
A very enjoyable contemporary read ... I was surprised how quickly I got to the end! Recommend.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions in this review are entirely my own.
A very enjoyable contemporary read ... I was surprised how quickly I got to the end! Recommend.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions in this review are entirely my own.
August 19, 2014
Young friends running away from a wedding, from a relationship that might cramp her style, from a permanent place to live. Ann Hood has produced a piece of fiction, showing how fickle the younger generation is.
October 12, 2015
Dragging It's Feet r
I kept waiting for it to get better and then it was over. Underwhelming compared to The Obituary Writer. Flat characters and flat plot. I guess that was the point, but why?
I kept waiting for it to get better and then it was over. Underwhelming compared to The Obituary Writer. Flat characters and flat plot. I guess that was the point, but why?
July 2, 2008
Although the main themes are still relevant today, I found the characters and story line to be very outdated. Kind of like Sex in the City from the late 80's.
April 18, 2013
The more I read Ann Hood, the more I like her and the characters she creates. You just feel like she knows your life intimately.
July 23, 2013
not that great. her writing has definitely improved
Read
October 2, 2014Just ok
May 9, 2014
Not a book for someone married already
This book was more for someone who isn't married or possibly thinking of marriage. These characters had too many issues for my tastes.
This book was more for someone who isn't married or possibly thinking of marriage. These characters had too many issues for my tastes.
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