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Book Summary and Reviews of Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Same As It Ever Was

A Novel

by Claire Lombardo

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Published:
  • Jun 2024, 512 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had ("wonderfully immersive…deliciously absorbing"—NPR) returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.

Same As It Ever Was showcases the consummate style, signature wit, and profound emotional intelligence that made The Most Fun We Ever Had one of the most beloved novels of the past decade. Featuring a memorably messy family and the multifaceted marriage at its heart, Lombardo's debut was dubbed "the literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler" (The Guardian)) and hailed as "ambitious and brilliantly written" (Washington Post). In this remarkable follow-up—another elegant and tumultuous story in the tradition of Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Celeste Ng—Lombardo introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist.

Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.

She's unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor's edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life—exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. When you were first introduced to Helen Russo, what were your hunches about her history with Julia? As their story unfolded, what did you observe about the basis of their friendship? What did they ultimately need from each other?
  2. What were the greatest sources of tension in Mark and Julia's marriage? What were the sturdiest strands—emotional or otherwise—that held their relationship together and strengthened it over the years?
  3. As Julia copes with feelings of loneliness after Ben is born, what does she discover about herself? If that story of new parenthood had been told from Mark's point of view, how would it have been different? How did his experiences as an outsider in his family shape his approach to ...
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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Pitch-perfect... Lombardo is compulsively readable and consistently funny, and it's impossible to look away as Julia continues to self-sabotage. This domestic drama hits all the right notes." —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"Lombardo's density of sociological and psychological details is immersive at best but can sometimes be enervating." —Kirkus Reviews

"Lombardo loves her characters, taking time to peel back each of their layers through the time-lapse structure of the novel and her rich descriptions... A sure bet for fans of Richard Russo and Jane Smiley." —Booklist

"Sparkling... Readers will be torn between their instinct to race to the finish and their desire to savor every page." —Publisher's Weekly Summer Reads

"Witty and insightful...a powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood, and self." —Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

This information about Same As It Ever Was was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Claire Lombardo

Claire Lombardo is the author of The Most Fun We Ever Had, which has been optioned for television by Reese Witherspoon. She lives in Iowa City, where she has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Grinnell College and works part-time as a bookseller at Prairie Lights Books.

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