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Book Reviewed by:From "America's librarian" and NPR books commentator Nancy Pearl comes an emotionally riveting debut novel about an unlikely marriage at a crossroads.
George and Lizzie have radically different understandings of what love and marriage should be. George grew up in a warm and loving family - his father an orthodontist, his mother a stay-at-home mom - while Lizzie grew up as the only child of two famous psychologists, who viewed her more as an in-house experiment than a child to love.
Over the course of their marriage, nothing has changed - George is happy; Lizzie remains…unfulfilled. When a shameful secret from Lizzie's past resurfaces, she'll need to face her fears in order to accept the true nature of the relationship she and George have built over a decade together.
With pitch-perfect prose and compassion and humor to spare, George and Lizzie is an intimate story of new and past loves, the scars of childhood, and an imperfect marriage at its defining moments.
George and Lizzie put me in mind of long lazy chats with friends—slightly circular, occasionally random, but always entertaining. Beyond the novel's character studies, the plot is simple and wandering—much like many ordinary lives. The pleasure and tension is created organically by the interactions of two divergent personality types as well as real-life moments such as family changes, friends' blessings and struggles, and finding one's way in the world...continued
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(Reviewed by Sarah Tomp).
Although the focus of George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl is their romantic relationship, I consider this novel to be a love story, not a romance. This distinction is arguably subjective and open for interpretation—perhaps rooted in literary snobbery—but as someone who appreciates both genres, this is how I discern the two.
Characters
As in many types of stories, characters are central to both love stories and romances. We need to be intrigued by and invested in them in order to fully appreciate their relationship. Characters in a romance may feel idealized in some way. They might have some type of flaw—but even this flaw is likely to be a strength in disguise. Love stories tend to have more deeply and authentically ...
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