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Anywhere But Here
Anywhere But Here
Anywhere But Here
Audiobook20 hours

Anywhere But Here

Written by Mona Simpson

Narrated by Kate Rudd

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

Anywhere But Here is a moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer. As they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions, Ann and Adele bring to life a novel that is a brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation. Simpson's first novel is ultimately a heart-rendering tale of a mother and daughter's invaluable relationship.

"The two women in this book are American originals. Ann is a new Huck Finn, a tough, funny, resourceful love of a girl. Adele is like no one I've encountered, at once deplorable and admirable--and altogether believable."
--Walker Percy

"Anywhere But Here is a wonder: big, complex, masterfully written, it's an achievement that lands [Simpson] in the front ranks of our best novelists."
--Newsweek

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 16, 2012
ISBN9781455891993
Anywhere But Here
Author

Mona Simpson

Mona Simpson is the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim Grant and the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. She is the author of the acclaimed novels Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road and My Hollywood. She lives in Santa Monica, California with her husband and their two children.

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Reviews for Anywhere But Here

Rating: 3.5434781677018634 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

161 ratings7 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Anywhere but Here by Mona Simpson; (2 1/2*)The author divides the book in an unusual manner. Each section has a different character speaking about past and present experiences. There are chapters written by Anne, Adele, Lillian, and Carol.Overall the book was a bit over the top which made it difficult to care about what was going on within the story.The mother is a whack job whose teenage daughter has more sense than she does. Adele thinks her daughter is ready to be a star; which is what she wants for her while the daughter is an academic who wants an education so they move from Wisconsin to California. There they find life difficult but the mother is too dense to realize what is and is not important.The mother is a pathetic creature wanting, wanting, wanting and all at the expense of her daughter, whether knowingly or not. I could not be sympathetic for her. The daughter is a very strong girl though she does not realize it and is continually picking up the pieces of their lives.All in all I found this read to be just okay enough to complete it. The author divides the book in an unusual manner. Each section has a different character speaking about past and present experiences. There are chapters written by Anne, Adele, Lillian, and Carol.Overall the book was a bit over the top which made it difficult to care about what was going on within the story.The mother is a whack job whose teenage daughter has more sense than she does. Adele thinks her daughter is ready to be a star (what she wants for her, while the daughter is an academic who wants an education) so they move from Wisconsin to California. There they find life difficult but the mother is too dense to realize what is and is not important.The mother is a pathetic creature wanting, wanting, wanting and all at the expense of her daughter, whether knowingly or not. I could not be sympathetic for her. The daughter is a very strong girl though she does not realize it and is continually picking up the pieces of their lives.All in all I found this read to be just okay enough to complete it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mona Simpson and Kate Rudd had me captivated for 20 hours.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I've had this book for years and decided to read it cause it was in Nancy Pearl's Book Lust. There were some parts that were okay, but I wasn't a huge fan of this book. The mother, Adele August, drove me nuts! I hated this woman and I've seen women similar to her in real-life! A girl back in high school did an essay/project on it and she thought it was funny. I didn't find it to be really funny at all, and I was expecting it to be a bit different.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Half the dysfunction STILL would have been too much. This book was such a downer. Adele, the mother, was a complete flake. Ann, her daughter, always overcomes--somehow or other. Author sometimes abruptly changes the course of action. There were several times I thought I had turned ,multiple pages and lost the plot line, but no. I was reading consecutive pages, just another random plot twist from nowhere.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A mother with big dreams moves with her daughter from Wisconsin to Beverly Hills. It took forever to get through this meandering story told from different characters' viewpoints. Maybe the movie is more compelling.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ann August’ mother refuses to be ordinary...the very thing that her adolescent daughter longs for most. Adele August, mother of Ann, is a high spirited woman who doesn't fit the profile of a mom. "Strangers always love my mother," Ann tells us early on. Ann is sometimes torn between loving and hating her mother, as are most teen-age girls, but most mothers aren’t grandiose, manipulative, and narcissistic. Ann states,”it’s always people like my mother who start the noise, and bang things, who make you feel the worst; they are the ones who get your love.” ; which by common knowledge is the response pattern of most abused people and animals for that matter.Adele yearns for a life in California, where life will be beautiful and Ann will become a famous television star. But her lifelong dream and goal turns out, like many things in the Augusts' lives, to be lackluster when it becomes reality.She pushes Ann towards a direction she thinks will be great for her, wanting to give her daughter a life she didn't have. She forces Ann to become the adult and to be the one to think logically.Anywhere But Here is dense with misery and amazement all tangled together--a realistic and thus rare portrait of love.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    None of the characters were sympathetic. Mother is weird and neurotic.