Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of Escape by Barbara Delinsky

Escape by Barbara Delinsky

Escape

A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Jul 2011, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman's desire to abandon the endless obligations of work and marriage - and the idea that the most passionate romance can be found with the person you know best.

Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with vic­tims of tainted bottled water - and she is on the bottler's side.

And it isn't only work. It's her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn't connect the way she used to. She doesn't connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things - her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch.

Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Delinsky nails it in her trademark latest, a captivating and moving story about a woman who's had enough of her life and wants a fresh start...[She] keeps the story moving with some nice twists on a familiar plot, rich characterizations, and real-feeling dilemmas that will keep readers hooked." - Publishers Weekly

"Our literary editor recommends Escape, by Barbara Delinsky." - Good Housekeeping

"This thought-provoking book will be popular summer reading." - Library Journal

Reader's Guide

This information about Escape 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.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cloggie Downunder

original and unpredictable
Escape is the 41st stand-alone novel by popular author, Barbara Delinsky. One Friday morning, New York lawyer Emily Aulenbach takes stock of her life and realises it has strayed so far from her dream that she needs to escape. She takes off her watch, turns off her Blackberry, leaves behind her laptop and, without telling anyone or having any firm plans, heads north. After a few days, she finds herself in Bell Valley, New Hampshire, a place where her life changed radically one summer, ten years ago, and a place where she hopes to, once again, find herself. In Bell Valley, she renews a neglected friendship with Vicki Bell, submits to the healing powers of the Animal Refuge and reconnects with the mystical coyote of that long-ago summer. But an old lover, Vicki’s brother Jude, has also returned to Bell Valley; Emily is wedded to James, but the problems she ran away from include her fulfilling job, her demanding family and friends and her dysfunctional marriage, so is Jude’s presence a help or a hindrance? In this novel, Delinsky gives the reader characters with depth, spirit and integrity and a plot that is original and unpredictable, with an exciting climax. Delinsky touches on a range of topical subjects: the pressure of modern-day life; damage claims against large corporations; animal refuges; trust funds; intimidation and stalking; infertility and life balance. I had not read any Delinsky novels for quite some time, so I had forgotten what a pleasure these are to read. I really enjoyed this one.

Jemma McKee

Predictable plot
The back story of her relationship with her college roommate is just dumped into the beginning of story. The heroine is predictable ... over worked lawyer with not enough time for a life. her husband is one-dimensional... she may love him ... but not much. When she chucks it all to find herself in a stereotypical small town ... of course an old boyfriend appears. he is more a 60's guy than is believable.
Barbara D mailed this in... I did not finish book

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Barbara Delinsky Author Biography

In her own words: "I was born and raised in suburban Boston. My mother's death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom dancing lessons. I went to summer camp through my fifteenth year (in Maine, which explains the setting of so many of my stories), then spent my sixteenth summer learning to type and to drive (two skills that have served me better than all of my other high school courses combined). I earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. The motivation behind the M.A. was sheer greed. My husband was just starting law school. We needed the money.

Oh. Oh. Back up. You'll love this. When I was in high school, I was kicked out ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Barbara Delinsky's Website

Other books by Barbara Delinsky at BookBrowse
  • Uplift jacket

9 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking something up and finding something else ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.