Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York's Lower East Side, to Seattle's Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia. All of the qualities readers love in Amy Bloom's work--her humor and wit, her elegant and irreverent language, her unflinching understanding of passion and the human heart--come together in the embrace of this brilliant novel, which is at once heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews with the most likes.
This book was so well-written and crafted, which I appreciated, and I really wanted to like it. But it just felt like page after page of suffering and depression. The story just went from misery to different misery and didn't feel like there was any resolution at the end. I didn't care about most of the characters and actively disliked the others. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.
Maybe this isn't the best book to read when you are tired. Unfortunately, nighttime is the only time I have to read. I'm growing to appreciate big print and little words.
I spent a lot of time re-reading each sentence of this book. What ever happened to subject/predicate, topic sentence, and consistent timeline/POV style of writing? It's amazing to think it went through an editor at a major publishing (Random) house. Maybe Amy Bloom is a just that well-known. To me, it felt a little like she took each section of the book, ran them through in a blender, and then tossed them back on a page.
I would be giving it one star if I hadn't been somewhat enlightened by the historical aspect and what I believe, in my own, incompetent way, to be the overarching message of the book. And that might be that at times, we go on an epic quest and find what we weren't looking for.
Is it just me?
