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RECONSIDERING HAPPINESS, a novel by Sherrie Flick. I finished the novel back in 2009 and still remember how much I enjoyed this book. Below is my blog post from back then:I felt an ache on finishing RECONSIDERING HAPPINESS, not wanting it to end.The novel spoke to me, resonated. As an immigrant, a woman who began my own quest years ago: traveling continents to escape heartbreak, looking in places and people for sense, meaning, answers. Happiness. Love. Home. Who even now, is still reconsidering
I admire women writers who tell it like it us, don't prettify their female characters, don't apologize for their actions. A dead-on exploration of women's issues (and men's, peripherally) in recent decades, in regards to relationships with themselves and others. I loved Flick's juxtaposition of several characters. It works to reveal so much more about each one, as they reveal or withold information from each other. The reader is let it on all the secrets, and there are many. My only regret is th...
As a writer I'm always interested to see what other writers do with words, characters, plot, etc. Sherrie Flick does a great job at creating believable yet unreliable characters and letting the reader discover who these people are without going overboard on the exposition. The novel jumps around with events and scenes, which can get annoying, but if you just go along for the ride it's quite enjoyable.
It seems fair to say that Reconsidering Happiness is as much -- or more -- a story of moments between events as a story of the events themselves. In these interwoven stories of two women in search of the places they're meant to be, the structure of the novel keeps the narrative circling around its answers like the characters circle their own, in a way that felt entirely natural and never like a narrative trick. The honesty of the characters is striking, as they try to figure out what they want a...
This is a quietly enchanting novel about two women whose lives converge when they both take jobs at a New Hampshire bakery. When the novel begins, Margaret has left the bakery behind and is now married and living on a farm in Nebraska while Vivette is just starting a journey out to Des Moines in an old Buick she buys off of her grandfather. When Vivette comes to visit Margaret, we learn more about each woman's past, the secrets they do not tell each other, and the different romantic and platonic...
“I stopped, you know, felt this blip of joy—felt how simple and beautiful and easy the world could be.” Reconsidering Happiness by Sherrie Flick is a novel about 23-year-old Vivette who heads for Des Moines from Portsmouth in search of a new beginning after ending an affair with a married man, and Margaret who fled from a devastating heartbreak in Portsmouth years ago and is now struggling with her old self when Vivette arrives and brings on past memories. Flick invites Vivette and Margaret to t...
A review copy of this book was sent to me at work. The Annals of Iowa (which I edit) does not generally review fiction, but I opened it up anyway to see why the publisher would have sent it to me. The opening paragraph grabbed me and wouldn't let go:"Vivette knew nothing about Des Moines except for the lovely ease of the letters--the way its name sounded out like a yoga chant, exotic and foreign. Des Moines, with those silent s's beckoning with a sexy finger, a promise. It whispered to her as sh...
This book is a beautiful reflection on how we come to terms with our lives, our loves, and most importantly our relationship to the self. Filled with lush and thoughtful descriptions, Sherrie Flick's writing appeals to all the senses and fully recreates the worlds that her characters inhabit. This novel is a delicate balance of past and present, of hunger and of satiation, of accident and of action. While this novel may not be a perfect match for readers who prefer strong and linear plot lines,
Don't look for a fast-paced story here because you won't find it. And that seems at least partly the point. These people--Vivette and Margaret, mostly, but also the men in their lives--are searching and constantly refining what it means to be happy. That's something that develops over time, and through scenes in a fractured timeline the reader gets the sense of that evolution. I love that these are not perfect people with great lives. They're pretty ordinary, and they're flawed, and that's what
Young women with a common background of working in a bakery, trying to find their own paths to happiness by starting over, maybe slowing down and dealing with loneliness...and allowing happiness in to their lives. perhaps a key would be to let go of some of their self destructive activities.....
Ho hum. I just could not seem to get interested in these characters, their lives, loves and travels.
