<p>Okay -- it says right there in the description of the book meghan: ghosts. There are talking ghosts in this book. You hate random additions of ghosts, or <a href="http://www.reluctantm.com/?p=3032">aliens</a>, or <a href="http://www.reluctantm.com/?p=3587">multiple personalities</a>, or <a href="http://www.reluctantm.com/?p=6038">bunny coke-orgies</a>, and yet you requested <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18260976/book/148405531">I'll Take You There</a> from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> and this is why you cannot have nice things. </p>

<p>Setting aside the ghosts for a second (ghosts! really?), we have a narrative about a guy being told/shown about women. Apparently this makes it,
according to some other blurbs and reviews, a <i>feminist</i> novel. Can we all just stop and appreciate for a moment that a guy learning about what some women went through (anorexia, unplanned pregnancy, pregnancy complications, same-sex relationships) is somehow considered a feminist novel? Has patriarchy set the bar so low that merely having a man realize that women can have complex lives and stories is somehow groundbreaking? Why even have Felix, our protagonist, anyway? Why not cut out the ghosts and just tell the story of the women? That's the interesting part of the book, not Felix's ramblings about this-and-that, telling (and who's he talking to anyway) us that no one's going to remember Bieber in fifty years. Felix is likeable, in a sort of tolerable, rambling-great-uncle way. He seems like a nice enough guy, but why make the book about him learning about some women in his life. If I was feeling mean-spirited, I would say that the whole narrative structure is set up to reinforce that without being viewed through a masculine lens, women's lives are meaningless. But I'm not that mean-spirited. I honestly think that Lamb's framing device is ingrained, not-mean-spirited, patriarchal structures at work. </p>

<p>Now setting aside both ghosts and gender politics, it's a Wally Lamb book. So it's easy to read and somewhat endearing, but it's also mild pablum, and probably the most forgettable of any of Lamb's books. </p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18260976/book/148405531">I'll Take You There</a> by Wally Lamb went on sale November 24, 2016.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

The most hones review I can give of this book is that I think everyone must read it. The setting is imaginative and magical and often humorous. But the content is engaging on every level, evoking strong multi-emotional responses. It is informative about current issues of mental health, feminism, LGBT and about the history of social change. Read it!

This novel starts off entertainingly, with Wally Lamb’s characteristic humour in full force. “I turned sixty this year,” says the narrator Felix Funicello, “an age that brings deficits of course: creaky knees, a temporary inability to remember familiar people’s names, a second colonoscopy.” Every Monday evening he sets up his projector in an old vaudeville theatre to show old movies. One night the ghost of Lois Webber, a director from the silent film era shows up, and invites him to watch scenes from his life. And so Felix is taken back, to his childhood, and to the women in his life. These sections provide entertaining, marvellous, witty reading. And of course while reading who isn’t propelled back into their own lives, imagining the deliciousness of being able to watch your past in a movie being screened just for you?

He reflects on the women in his life, the exes and all that went wrong, his two sisters, and the family dynamics. The scenes set in his 1950s childhood, campaigning for one of nominees for the Miss Rheingold crown (a beauty pageant) to win the competition, as she comes from their hometown are keenly written.

What the past has to teach us, and how secrets that are unearthed propel us towards healing is a message at the core of this novel. As Felix remarks, as the story ends: “How could I not believe in ghosts, and what they have to teach us about how to learn from the past, fully inhabit the present, and embrace the propulsive thrust of the future.” The narrative is also undercut with his interactions with his intelligent, lively Gen Y daughter, Aliza, who keeps a blog. The story is entertaining, as I’ve said, but seems to end all too suddenly, and I felt there should have been more.

I didn't hate this book because I wouldn't have given it a 2 star rating if I did, but I also didn't love it.

It was trying too hard and the story itself needed some direction. Either Wally Lamb needed to make the book longer or cut elements of the book out to make the story flow better.

I love Wally Lamb's novels generally but 'I'll Take You There' feels phoned-in, despite the seriousness of its central themes. of familial identity and the damage done- and undone- by family secrets.

The story seemed hastily wrapped up yet it also petered out with the ending running into the acknowledgements in a muddled way. And the plot itself? Well it checks all the topical boxes: feminism, eating disorders, gender politics, family dysfunction and societal dysfunction to the degree that I thought I had mistakenly picked up a Jodie Picoult novel instead.

Lamb writes with compassion and fluidity which redeems the book somewhat but it all feels a little YA- and this is not marketed at the YA audience.

What jarred the most were the magazine features written by Alyssa, Felix's daughter, which were reproduced verbatim in the body of the story. Their insertion is clumsy and inappropriate, forced upon the reader much as a proud father might implore you to read his daughter's work by waving the magazine in your face. These sections had all the appeal of a Wikipedia cut + paste job and I found them profoundly irritating and at times, mansplaining. It's a shame because the actual subject matter of one of them, The Rheingold Girls, is fascinating stuff, worthy of further research in itself, as is the mention of the NYC Ansonia Hotel which really did have a farm on its roof- Alice Waters, NYC got there first!

Felix was deemed 'educable' by the ghosts of Hollywood past who he encountered in the auditorium of the movie theatre where he presented his film nights but I was left wondering how much he did actually learn from his dips into the past? At times it seemed that we got to view his life through the prism of Felix's juvenile emotions as he returned to his twelve year-old self but I was left unclear as to exactly how he had reconciled his reliving with his relearning. In light of the fact that the last few pages featured a 'how to do feminism' treatise presented through his female characters ,each of whom is clumsily meant to represent a different feminist experience, I suspect Felix sought to have his own opinions of women's gender rights reconfirmed.

If you haven't read Wally Lamb before, don't start with this one because it is not representative of his very great talent. Try 'She's Come Undone' first.

Having read all of wally Lamb's books and loved them. This was not my favorite. Perhaps I was expecting something else . The story of Felix Funicello , film scholar who has a weekly film club. There is magical realism in the form of ghosts. The characters are likeable and story is good but for some reason this one did not grab me