Want

A Novel

By: Lynn Steger Strong

Narrated by: Andi Arndt

Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Grappling with motherhood, economic anxiety, rage, and the limits of language, Want is a fiercely personal novel that vibrates with anger, insight, and love.

Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD - and now they're filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.

When she reaches out to Sasha, her long-lost childhood friend, it feels almost harmless - one of those innocuous ruptures that exist online, in texts. But her timing is uncanny. Sasha is facing a crisis, too, and perhaps after years apart, their shared moments of crux can bring them back into each other's lives.

In Want, Strong explores the subtle violences enacted on a certain type of woman when she dares to want things - and all the various violences in which she implicates herself as she tries to survive.

©2020 Lynn Steger Strong (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Actually really enjoyed this

I can see why some people wouldn’t like this book but I enjoyed it. If you are an educated woman with young kids struggling to survive and thrive in this economy it will probably resonate on some level. It’s a different type of book: diary/memoir style and not a story that fits into a neat package. I was hesitant to read after seeing negative reviews but I’m glad I went ahead with it.

Good Reading!

I totally enjoyed Lynn Stegar Strong novel.
I highly recommend it. I read it while I traveled. Could’nt wait o see how it ended.

A Little Disappointing

I expected to be more engaged and attached to the main character. I wanted to care more than I did.

Better than expected

This book similar to Luster which is a fantastic book. This book caught my attention and I couldn’t stop listening.

What was that?

This is a day in the life of a woman. Job, husband, friends, kids. But there’s no story. I keep waiting for a twist or an event of some proportion but nothing came. And the end was as if she just stopped writing before it was finished. Don’t waste your time.

Eh...

it's like getting to the end of a movie and saying to yourself, is that it?

Not something I would recommend

I got this after reading its title on a “best of” article. - and it was not a good book. Hapless, hopeless, wan. The characters didn’t develop and the “story” went nowhere. Yuck.

Waste of time

What a self absorbed person the narrator was. I wish I’d given up 1/2 way through, but I kept thinking, there has to be a point to this. But there wasn’t, one of the mast painful books I’ve endured. Skip it.

Strange Book

I chose this based on a review in the New Yorker, and I did not like it at all. I didn’t like the main character, so I didn’t care what happened to her. What was the purpose in not giving the characters names? This book is peculiar, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

Why??

I chose this book (with my free credit) based on an NPR book review. The review was SO misleading! The content was dry and depressing. It rambles on like a series of day-in-the-life accounts with no real conclusion(s). The most appropriate descriptor: Tedious.