The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant– Audio Version
Book Blurb:
Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine – a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today?” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.
My Review: 4 stars
I listened to The Boston Girl on an audio version and was pleasantly surprised to hear Linda Lavin (Alice) as the narrator. Her voice was age appropriate, articulate and warm.
This book is simple, quiet and touching as the main protagonist verbally shares her past to her granddaughter. We hear stories about growing up in a religious home, being the daughter of immigrants, the thirst for knowledge, surviving both world wars, family loves and losses, births and deaths, friendships maintained and withered.
A life is unlocked by the passing of stories from one generation to another. It’s a reminder to ask our own relatives about their pasts, and share more with our children.
Anita Diamant has written some beautiful books that rarely disappoint. My favorite is The Red Tent.
Quotes I liked:
Even a broken clock is right twice every day.”
-“As far as I can tell, common sense hasn’t been in fashion for a long time.”
-“Never apologize for being smart.”
-“It took me until I was almost forty before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
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