Away - Amy Bloom

I feel like I've been in a reading funk for the past couple weeks. Despite reading books that come highly recommended, I just haven't found anything I find remotely interesting. Angela lent me this one, and Ashley's mom also really enjoyed it. It is the story of Lillian who makes her way to America after her family is slaughtered in Russia. She survives by conducting simultaneous affairs with a handsome actor and his wealthy father. But, when Lillian learns that her daughter Sophie may in fact have survived the massacre, she vows to return to Russia to find her. The book covers her adventure from New York to Seattle and across Alaska, as she learns the American ways of lying, cheating, and exchanging sex for money and food -- all of which seem to come perfectly natural to her. I found Lillian's character so one -dimensional. While she had clearly endured so much tragedy and was trying to survive the only way she knew how, I never really felt much sympathy. She seemed like a shell with no true emotion. Obviously, she wants nothing more than to find her daughter, but each step of her journey is done so matter-of-factly that the only way I knew she'd rather be with her daughter than go to work at a factory was because the author told me so. There are so many great immigrant woman torn from her family stories out there that this one is probably worth passing over.