🍒TOM LAKE by ANN PATCHETT // newest book obsession 

I feel like so many people are accepting this book as a ‘cozy read’ but everytime I pick up a Patchett book I am always overcome w emotions, even though she has such a gentle voice and way of writing, I’ll still be so in a frenzy over some aspect of the book!

You have made tons of sense! I def don’t appreciate Patchett books the way people with more life experience can. I am excited and scared for what it means to get older and identify with Lara because I know it will happen (mostly because Patchett is that good of a writer). Rereading is part of the joy for me, it keeps the magic of a good reading experience alive. I get nervous to reread books I loved from childhood though because what if I completely hate them now, ya know?

@@marzistarzibookishfrenzi That’s a risk, for sure. I have read all of John Green’s books twice, and except maybe for The Fault in Our Stars, I think I liked all of them more the first time around. There’s just something about that feeling the very first time you’re discovering a book. You can never have that same feeling with that book again. Perhaps if you have severe memory issues!! I never looked forward to getting older, but I feel like I’ve really settled into it nicely. I really do feel wiser than I used to. I have enjoyed every phase of my life along the way, but I think the one I’m in right now (I’m 52) just might be my favorite, which seems weird when I say it out loud, because you’d think I’d want to go back to my 20s and 30s. Okay, if I could be in my 22-year-old body with my 52-year-old mind, that would be amazing!!!

Ahh I’m working my way through all of Patchett’s works, I haven’t read Commonwealth yet!

Hiiii!! omg you have no idea how happy I am to see your comment! I think of meta fiction as self-aware work/ story within a story/ story about a story. The example I always refer to is the play within a play in Hamlet, or Don Quixote. Thank you for agreeing w my TS and Ann P comparison! Ever since I thought it, I can’t unsee it! Patchett has such a huge body of work! I know it’s basic, but I still love Bel Canto. I haven’t read any of her nonfiction works. I just listened to the audio book for the Dutch House and… opinions. Thank you again for commenting!! ✨✨ Seriously, I have talked the ear off of everyone I know about this book.

LOVE ASHER LEV 🫡🫡🫡 Okay so it’s been a couple of months since I read the book and made this video (thank for being the comment I was waiting for 🫶🏻)- so in Baltimore she goes and sees Mr Big Shot and sleeps with him while he is in rehab!! And that moment for me was so poignant because she goes and has dinner the BROTHER AFTER AND PATS HERSELF ON THE BACK FOR NOT SLEEPING WOTH HIK AND HOW THEY BOTH ARE PATTING THEMSELVES ON THE BACK FOR NOT SLEEPING TOGETHEr. And I am still jaw on the floor at this moment because it feels like such a low point to hold the torch for this guy and then sleep with him in rehab and he doesn’t even remember you years later. And I think the lipstick of Maisie and how Laura will never understand why she wears it when there is no one around to impress is what makes it click for me, that Laura thinks of appearance and love as something that validates HER and wearing lipstick for Laura would be about male attention. I don’t think this is a ‘bad thing,’ I just think this is how the character thinks and is maybe even a generational difference in thinking. I do think there is something to be said that Anne Patchett chose not to have children herself and how to speaks about motherhood. I don’t know how much I could speak to this tho because I’m not a mom, I’ve only seen MANY mom readers talk about how they relate to Laura… which prompted me RUNNING to my mom and asking how she felt lol! I feel like Emily is portrayed so irrationally by Laura but idk… if I was named after my mom’s defining moments of life when she COULVE been famous, I’d feel sometype of way too. I think that the instance of her willing to sleep w that Broadway producer for the role is an instance of her being an unreliable narrator. She down plays it ALOT! The same way she downplays sleeping w her best friends boyfriend and how it’s all “just memories now.” (Okay I feel like I’m coming off like I don’t like the character, I do, but I think I read the book from a similar stand point of ‘holy crap my mom had a life before me.’) I def have my own moral beliefs on sleeping w someone to get ahead (I would not do it). And I think this story would be completely different if Laura had someone along the way take her up on the offer. Sorry I wrote you a novel lol!! I hope I have made some interesting points (it has been a bit since I read it)

Found Asher Lev by using MIT's Ringo, one of the very first recommendation engines. Think how much better the world would be if the New York Met was still free! Why doesn't some billionaire do that? Baltimore/Boston, what's the difference? I think our Annie was riffing on a very famous celebrity mental hospital/rehab place - McLean in Belmont, Massachusetts. Sylvia Plath (I saw your Bell Jar review) was just one of the famous writers who spent time there. That sex in the bathroom incident still bothers me - Lara is like a robot - my theory is the reason she won't tell her daughters the story is not wanting them to know her capacity for humiliation - but I could be wrong. Still on a high from discovering your review - any author that gets you to have a memorable conversation with your mother has my thanks.