Blue Shoe

I finished this book over Memorial weekend. It was a perfect book to be able to sit outside in the sun with and just breeze through.

I read this after finishing another Anne Lamott book (though, this one was fiction and the first one I read was more biographical/reflective). After reading her first book, Ilearned a lot about her personal life and this book, Blue Shoe, seemed very similar. There were a lot of parts of this book that really tugged at my heartstrings, in particular the part where she had to put her dog to sleep. I was reading it at work and actually had tears welling up in my eyes while I sat in my desk.

The story follows the main character, Mattie through her journey dealing with her own divorce, her mother's failing health (I think she has Alzheimers), raising her 2 children as a single mother, the search for answers to mysteries involving keepsakes found in the glovebox of her deceased father's car and her search for love and stronger faith. I noticed that it mirrored a lot of things Anne was dealing with in her own personal life (I think Mattie's son, Harry was a lot like Anne's son, Sam). As the mystery unravels, I thought Anne through in a disturbing detail about Mattie's father's past. I think the story line could have done without it completely and it sort of through off the balance of the book, swinging it into something much darker and much more deep than it had been or needed to be. Then, as quickly as the reader is shocked with it, it's gone and not really touched on again. Maybe I was just looking for a breezy read and this seemed too harsh, maybe I'm being to critical. But still.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, despite that shocking part towards the end, I thought the book had a strong emotional appeal, and I like that.