Literary fiction. Follows three women in three different generations of the same family – a riot grrrl-esque musician whom we first meet on her rise to renown in the ’90s, her mother (a hippie), and her paternal grandmother (who migrated to Canada as a young woman). Traces their respective journeys with partners, family, work, sexuality, abuse and the frustrations brought by men, addiction, abortion, the struggle to change one’s own maladaptive patterns, and more. It isn’t always what I feel like reading, but this was a useful reminder for me of the kind of richness that can be found in good literary fiction – a richness in terms of writing, but also in terms of the selves found on the page, which come to life with a complexity that is much more satisfying than even well-done characters in plenty of genre fiction (which is mostly what I read). On the other hand, there were also moments where it fell into a litfic tendency I am less fond of, namely having broken people doing messed up things over and over again, but in this instance that seemed fairly realistic and wasn’t intense enough to ruin it for me. Overall, quite enjoyed it.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.