Book Summary: Self-published in 2003, Hilary Thayer Hamann’s Anthropology of an American Girl touched a nerve among readers, who identified with the sexual and intellectual awakening of its heroine, a young woman on the brink of adulthood. A moving depiction of the transformative power of first love, Hamann’s first novel follows Eveline Auerbach from her high school years in East Hampton, New York, in the 1970s through her early adulthood in the moneyed, high-pressured Manhattan of the 1980s.
Centering on Evie’s fragile relationship with her family and her thwarted love affair with Harrison Rourke, a professional boxer, the novel is both a love story and an exploration of the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world. As Evie surrenders to the dazzling emotional highs of love and the crippling loneliness of heartbreak, she strives to reconcile her identity with the constraints that all relationships—whether those familial or romantic, uplifting to the spirit or quietly detrimental—inherently place on us. Though she stumbles and strains against social conventions, Evie remains a strong yet sensitive observer of the world around her, often finding beauty and meaning in unexpected places.
Centering on Evie’s fragile relationship with her family and her thwarted love affair with Harrison Rourke, a professional boxer, the novel is both a love story and an exploration of the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world. As Evie surrenders to the dazzling emotional highs of love and the crippling loneliness of heartbreak, she strives to reconcile her identity with the constraints that all relationships—whether those familial or romantic, uplifting to the spirit or quietly detrimental—inherently place on us. Though she stumbles and strains against social conventions, Evie remains a strong yet sensitive observer of the world around her, often finding beauty and meaning in unexpected places.
Review: Very seldom will you find me putting down a book before it is finished. This was one of those times. I hate to be a quitter, but this book was terrible! I got about halfway through before I couldn’t take it any longer.
I’m not sure how this novel became such a hit, as it is lacking the basic elements that make a book great. It doesn’t really seem to have any kind of plot- the storyline wanders and it’s hard to keep up with the ever-changing characters, as none of them are really written in-depth. The main character, Evie, seems to be a selfish, narcissistic girl who does not have any traits that I can identify with. In fact, I started to despise her after a few chapters.
Evie is the only character who really has any substance and I felt that the book was just one big whiny monologue. I was actually looking for excuses NOT to read so that I could avoid having to open this book.
0 out of 10 stars
Read if you like: falling asleep with your face in a book
you make me laugh
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