Book Review: 'My Name is Lucy Barton' by Elizabeth Strout

I finished this book a fortnight ago, but just getting round to finally reviewing it. It's really quite a short book, so didn't take me too long to read. I bought it over the summer in my frenzy of book buying, because I had seen it on display a lot, the blurb sounded good, and it is a really beautiful book to pick up, with lovely thick cream paper and understated yet striking cover, not to mention the perfect book smell (ok, I'm gonna stop the weirdness and move on!).

Brief Summary: Lucy Barton is a married mum of two young girls, who is in hospital in New York following a major surgery. One day, she waked to see her mother by her bedside. The mother she has not seen in many years. As the pair chat and story tell, Lucy recollects her rural childhood of poverty, and the quirky little details that brought her to where she is now and, later on, beyond.

Other than the hospital setting and the introduction of the mother, there isn't exactly a plot to this book. Rather, it's a reflective collection of tales from the narrative viewpoint of the central character, Lucy. While many of the details to which Strout includes (and often gives a lot of space to) may, on their own, appear to be a bit trivial or small,  each contributes to this wonderful truthful story which really makes you feel the emotions of the narrator, and, for me, brought a real element of nostalgia out.

In fact, towards the end of the book, I really regretted sitting reading it in public, because the combination of these emotional family tales and being away from home had me a bit choked up!

This is a short review, because it's a short book and I didn't really have anything about it that I didn't like. I really urge all of you to pick up a copy. Not a long read but well worth it. Truly beautiful writing.




Reading Challenge: 15/21