Less

An adorable book with an unforgettable quirky character. Andrew Less is a gay writer, but he's also so much more. He's scared, naive, hopeful, and in total denial. When his young paramour breaks it off with him and announces his marriage, Less knows he must go. He can't possibly be around while his lover get married to someone else. He clears his calendar and makes a plan. For once, he's going to start RSVPing to author events and vacations. He will get out of California and spend months traveling and forgetting all about his paramour. From an author event in NYC to a conference in Mexico to teaching a class in Germany, Less finds a way to travel for free. The only problem is, he can't escape his past no matter where he travels or what he does. Plucky, cute, inventive, and fun. I adored this book. Andrew Less is a character you won't soon forget.

Olive Kitteridge

I enjoyed this book but it wasn't remotely what I thought it would be. Olive Kitteridge is the common thread between all the stories in this novel. Set in a small town in Maine, Olive is a retired school teacher who loves her son (too fiercely perhaps), enjoys in the goings on of others, and tries to make sense of her life as she ages. Some of the stories are from her perspective and many others are from other townsfolk as they view her, sometimes from a far distance. She is a bit prickly and stoic but she is also very relatable and sympathetic. An interesting and complex  look at an aging woman and then lens through which she sees the world around her and the way that others perceive her as well.

That Old Cape Magic

I picked up this book after one of the ladies in my book club said (and I quote), "It was the best book I ever read." Wow, I thought, with a glowing recommendation like that, it's got to be good! Not exactly.

Too be fair, Richard Russo has written a lot of other books (none of which I've read) and won a Pulitzer prize, so I know he's a good author. And this book was well written. But.... I still didn't like it. At all. I couldn't relate with the characters, I didn't care about their struggles, I felt nothing.In fact, I kept forgetting that the main character was in his fifties (maybe sixties...), he felt too young to me. But I digress. It was written well, developed well, told well, it just didn't click with me. I really did want to like it. And there were moments when I laughed out loud (the wedding rehearsal dinner at the end is quite hilarious).

To dumb down the plot, it's basically about a husband going through a late midlife crisis who can't decide what he wants out of life. Does he prove his miserable parents right or wrong? Does he leave Joy and go back out to LA to screen-write or stay with her in Maine and keep his teaching position? Whose opinion is more important: his, his wife's, or his parents?

For fans of literature or Richard Russo.