Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen
Book Review: 3 out of 5 star rating
Nora Nolan has always felt a kinship with New York City and wants to live nowhere else. Her husband Charlie doesn’t feel the same way. He’s always trying to convince her to move from the city, mostly because he hasn’t found success in NYC and thinks he’ll do better elsewhere. Their twins have left home and are living at college now. The dead end street where they live is a tight knit group of friends and those not well thought of. Most have dogs and Nora and Charlie’s dog, Homer, opens up channels of communication with many of the neighbors. They all mourn together when one of them loses a dog. One of the neighbors, Jack, has anger issues and often that anger is directed at the area’s handyman, Ricky. When a dispute over parking spaces erupts into violence, none of their lives will be the same.
I have read many of Anna Quindlen’s books and she’s a favorite author of mine. I couldn’t be more surprised that I can only give her newest book 3 stars. I’ve read all of the glowing reviews but personally I struggled through this book. I had so much trouble keeping the characters straight and then realized that I just didn’t care for any of them and they all just blended together. These are people of privilege and they have lives that others would envy. And yet they aren’t satisfied and constantly whine. There’s a line in the book that I can’t find now which said something to the effect that you shouldn’t whine on a luxury cruise and that’s what I felt these people were doing. And I just couldn’t get interested in their “plight” at all.
That’s not to say that there weren’t parts of this book that I enjoyed. I loved the dog Homer who loved every minute of his walks around the neighborhood. I liked the exchanges between Nora and the “homeless” man. I enjoyed some of the humor that Ms. Quindlen includes in this book. Possibly I expected something else. The previous books by this author that I’ve read, such as “Black and Blue” and “One True Thing”, were much darker books and elicited strong emotions for me. The only scene that elicited emotion from me in this book was the one involving Homer.
Sorry, Ms. Quindlen, but this book isn’t at the top of my favorites of yours.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
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