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Surrender, Dorothy (2000)

Surrender, Dorothy (2000)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.23 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0671042548 (ISBN13: 9780671042547)
Language
English
Publisher
scribner

About book Surrender, Dorothy (2000)

This was a difficult book to read as a thirty-something, especially as a childless thirty-something who'd recently lost her mother. I've always felt that "friends are the family we choose for ourselves" and have had close circles of friends. We all want to believe that we've made a significant enough impact on people's lives that it wouldn't be easy for them to move on. But loving them, we also don't want the loss to be hard on them.Although I didn't find the characters all that likable, the story felt real to me. I've seen how sometimes one person is the reason that a random collection of people is a group and the loss of that person breaks all ties. I've also seen death bring people together in unexpected ways. It's a grim reminder that none of us is promised tomorrow, but oddly enough I felt it was a good year end read to get me motivated to focus more on the things that matter.

Because I had read a couple of tepid reviews of this book, I didn’t expect to enjoy it very much. To my great surprise, I found it deeply moving, delicately written, psychologically perceptive, and wickedly witty in the way it characterizes the failings (both real and imagined) of the characters. It’s the story of a young woman who dies suddenly in an accident and how her mother and a group of friends who shared a summer home with her come to terms with their loss. “Surrender, Dorothy” rings very true in its depiction of gay men and their relationships with heterosexual women. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have expected anything less than a wise and stylish work from Meg Wolitzer after liking her recent “The Interestings” so much.

Do You like book Surrender, Dorothy (2000)?

The character that dies is the type that tells her mother all about her sexual life and sleeps with her best friend's man. Her best friend is of course not as pretty as the uniquely gorgeous character that speaks and writes in beautiful Japanese. Her gay friend is attached to her in a way that seems unhealthy and everyone idolizes her. Her mother is brash and obnoxious. I hate, consequently, all of the characters and can not understand what is so special about this woman. I think what I hate is
—Kristin

Not sure I would read it again. An interesting read, but not something on my "have to recommend" list.I didn't like how Maddy just seemed to forgive Peter for his cheating, both with Sara and Natalie. I can understand if Wolitzer had followed their stories into the fall and there she forgave Peter, but within days, it just doesn't seem enough for me. I did like that she kept the story limited to the summer house and didn't follow their stories because it was a turning point for them and their lives wouldn't follow the same tight-knit path after that summer, you could tell.
—Brittany

Four old friends take a month every summer to escape NYC and hang out at the beach. Who are these people who can take a month of vacation every summer? Conveniently, one is a public school teacher, one is a playwright, one is a perpetual student, and the other is an attorney on maternity leave (don't ask me how she managed other summers).The first night one of them dies in a car accident. They stay on for the rest of the month and start the grieving process. The dead girl's mother joins the and
—Dawn

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