Elizabeth Paquin

Beautifully written but should have been a collection of short stories.

Revisado: 05-04-24

A beautiful use of language and imagery. But as a novel, it was disjointed and verbose. I found myself often skipping ahead just to get to the point. Come to find out there was no point other than painting a picture of a young woman seeing the world as it is for the first time. A valuable point but much better served as a collection of short stories.

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Underdeveloped

Revisado: 01-21-23

The concept was interesting but ultimately the story was underdeveloped. I felt there needed to be significantly more art in order for it to be a central theme, particularly if it was intended to be a lifeline for the two main characters.

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Motherhood obsessed story paints a monochromatic picture of womanhood

Revisado: 05-15-22

It’s a nice to have a solid generational story to keep one company while doing other, solitary tasks like chores or driving. However, the obsession with motherhood and pregnancy created a monochromatic painting of womanhood, and all 4 adult women eventually blended into a single caricature. It would have been nice to have at least one of the adult female characters represent an alternative to womanhood and female identity that didn’t revolve around either being a mother or mourning not being a mother. I’m intentionally leaving out the youngest sister who was an emotionally insecure, half baked character. While technically also an adult, her story was tacked on, and seemingly served only one purpose, which was to hammer home the idea that her mother, of course, wouldn’t know how to survive into middle age unless she were actively mothering a later in life baby. And to make sure the reader truly gets the message, the one adult woman who was never a mother threatens the stability of the core family and ends up alone with 2 dogs. But even she isn’t free of the obsession, because she’s an obstetrician. As if she’s fulfilling her role as a woman by at least living mother adjacent by serving mothers through their pregnancies and deliveries. If you’re looking for a story that celebrates mothers as the center of the universe, this book might suit you. If you’re looking for a story of the messy beauty of everyday life, this book is not that.

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Engaging, but tiring at times

Revisado: 03-30-22

The intricacies of the story were engaging, but the overall theme that some people are just destined for misery wore thin.

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Not relatable at all

Revisado: 03-09-22

The experience shared here is more memoir than anything else. Hustle culture is real, but that connected to the stage is extreme and its own entity entirely. This would have been more relatable if stories from other types of hustle culture were woven through the narrative. Like, what does hustle culture feel like to people who would never dream of entering a career where discrimination based on looks are so explicit, where feelings of inadequacy aren’t so clearly connected to the career one chose to pursue. It would have been nice to hear stories that weren’t fueled by extreme anxiety and body dysmorphia, because for many who suffer at the hands of hustle culture, it’s way more covert and much more difficult to identify. Plastic surgery isn’t anywhere near the radar for many of us who are very much struggling.

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We need more representations of womanhood in fiction

Revisado: 01-27-20

Overall an entertaining story. That said, I could’ve done without the “infertile woman descends into madness under the burden of unrealized motherhood” followed by “successful pregnancy + weight loss = happy ending” narrative. We definitely need more representations of womanhood in fiction.

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Childish story, bad voice acting

Revisado: 09-25-19

I kept expecting the story to pick up, but as the mystery started revealing itself, it became clear it was a trite, childish, one-dimensional plot that never came to fruition. The voice acting follows suit, similarly immature and one-dimensional. Overall, nothing more than a teenage drama under the guise of a mystery.

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I couldn’t get past the first hour!

Revisado: 07-10-19

I don’t know if it was the story or the performance or both, but the first hour of the book played out like a drama my 7 yr old would love. The girls’ stories were trite, one dimensional, and childish, and the voice actor belongs in children’s theater, not narrating a book written for adult women. I couldn’t finish.

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