From the Bookshelf of What's the Name of That Book???…

The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

Elinor Lipman

Why we're reading this: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...…more
[close] https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Jun 04, 2007 Trin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, american-lit

The Inn at Lake Devine remains one of my favorite books, and Pursuit illustrates why: Lipman can really write female characters, and female characters I can relate to, which is incredibly, incredibly rare. She’s got a great protagonist in Alice—smart, poor social skills, makes dumb, self-destructive mistakes of the exact kind I can (and do) see myself making. In fact, parts of this book were kind of hard to read, they hit so close to home. But in the end, I loved Alice, and I love that somewher ...more

Like · see review

Jun 15, 2007 Punk rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Fiction. Elinor Lipman writes a good novel. Her characters are engaging and sympathetic (or fabulously annoying). She's got a great sense of humor and the ability to tell a decent story. But this book is missing something; namely, a satisfying conclusion.

The beginning is a little difficult to read because Alice is so flat and unfeeling, almost robotic, but I'm sure that was Lipman's intention. Alice Thrift is a socially impaired surgeon, and the novel is about her growth as a human being. After Fiction. Elinor Lipman writes a good novel. Her characters are engaging and sympathetic (or fabulously annoying). She's got a great sense of humor and the ability to tell a decent story. But this book is missing something; namely, a satisfying conclusion.

The beginning is a little difficult to read because Alice is so flat and unfeeling, almost robotic, but I'm sure that was Lipman's intention. Alice Thrift is a socially impaired surgeon, and the novel is about her growth as a human being. After the third chapter or so, Alice starts to develop signs of a personality, and I started to like her. She's emotionally stunted, but trying to do better. She makes friends, she makes some jokes...and then she makes some really bad decisions.

The main conflict hinges on a con man and your basic, totally regrettable, wedding hijinks, and that is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to read about in what is otherwise a fairly light-hearted book. I love a good heist story, but this is a cheap con and a see-through one at that. It doesn't help that the reader knows how the story ends from the first chapter: Alice tells us that Ray is a liar, and then we have to watch her go ahead marry him anyway. There's no mystery, no tension, no chance for the reader to come up with their own interpretation of things. Instead it's frustrating and uncomfortable, and even made me dislike Alice for being so stupid. To top it all off, I didn't get my big emotional payoff at the end when the right guy for Alice is finally available. Damn you, Lipman!

In some ways, I do admire Lipman's decision not to take the easy way out and set Alice up with the man she should have been with all along. Still, Lipman's conclusion didn't have the kind of resonance I would have liked. Alice Thrift married a man that only wanted her for her money, and I didn't get to see the impact that made on her developing personality.

Two stars. I like Lipman's work, but this didn't do justice to its main character. Alice deserved a better ending. ...more

Like · see review

Nov 03, 2014 Jennie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction

For most of the book, I thought Alice was too blind, too awkward, too...*too.* I hated Ray from the beginning (to be fair, we were set up to dislike him right away). The problem is, with nothing to like about the two main characters, it was hard to care about Alice until about halfway through. Even then, she was still annoyingly passive and unbelievably unquestioning.

Like · see review

May 27, 2008 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I a so engrossed in this book, which I'm reading for my book club. It's my first Lipman novel, and now I want to read her others...I love the character she created in Alice, the super smart MD who has no social skills and Ray, her smarmy salesman would be suitor. Now that the movie is out based on her book, hopefully her books will garner more interest. ...more

Like · see review