Review: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

Title: The Boston Girl
Author: Anita Diamant
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
Publish Date: December 9, 2014
Source: Library

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her "How did you get to be the woman you are today?" She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor."

My Two Cents:

In "The Boston Girl," at the ripe old age of 85, Addie tells her life story to her 20 something-year-old granddaughter. Her story is one of trying to become a modern, all-American girl in a family of immigrants who are tied to their old country ways. Addie is respectful but has a major difference in opinion as to what a woman's role should be in this brave new world. The book covers a long time period as Addie goes from an adolescent to an adult.

This book is by Anita Diamant. She also wrote "The Red Tent," which I absolutely love. This book is completely different from that book but a lot of the storytelling elements that I loved in that book are present in this one. Diamant has a great eye for detail and adding enough detail to make characters jump off the page.

Addie is a fascinating character because she is living during a very quickly changing time in the world. Her life will be unlike any other life in her family and it is up to her to forge her own path. She told her story with no bars hold and although the audience is supposed to be her granddaughter, we the readers get a front row seat to what her life was like. This writing style was utterly engrossing and pulled me in from the first page.

Overall, this is a good book about family and making a life for oneself.