3.5, rounded down. I liked Anna Quindlen's Alternate Side, but unfortunately, for a book that tackled a lot of life's big issues, I just didn't connect with it as much as I had hoped. Largely I feel that this is because while the book takes on a lot of issues (family, community, race relations, class, etc.), it doesn't explore them as fully as I would have hoped. It excels as being a story about marriage and relationships, as this topic is the most realized in the book. The last quarter or so of the book felt very rushed as it felt like events were packed in one after the other, which threw the pacing of this character driven story off quite a bit. I think this is a worthy and interesting read- just not a new favorite.

The story to me wasn’t Anna’s best. It dragged at times for me and was hard for me to read large sections at a time.

I have enjoyed some of Anna Quindlen’s earlier books but unfortunately this one left me feeling unsatisfied and a bit let down.

I will gladly read everything that Anna Quindlen writes, and this book was no exception to my love for her writing. It was fascinating to watch the town divide and relationships crack after the tragedy, and I loved the self-reflection that Nora is faced with in the wake of each event in the story. Definitely recommending this to my Facebook book clubs--Anna, keep up the great work!

You know, there are other cities in the world besides New York?" Not if you're a Manhattanite! Meet sex and the city without the sex, just a bunch of upscale families who live in a set of Brownstones on a one way/dead end block on the Upper West Side of "The City". Not filthy rich, but definitely comfortable with the ability to afford a private school education and hire servants to care for the kids, cook the meals, and keep the house in good repair. An in-kind neighborhood where everyone meets up while walking their dog, using their free time to gossip over coffee and plan their lives so as not to miss the biyearly "hospitable" get-togethers - the Memorial Day BBQ and the January "Holiday" Party. Once you're invited you know you have been accepted as one of the clique.

In Alternate Side, author Anna Quindlen brings us into the fold, placing us in a location where we can watch events unfurl. We see the world through the eyes of Nora Nolan, eyes that she often feels like rolling, such as when her husband Charlie is finally granted a coveted spot (and not a very good one at that) in the mini community parking lot - invitation only. No more playing the Alternate Side Game twice a week where you have to get up at the crack of dawn and move your car to the other side of the street to avoid getting a ticket. A sport that city dwellers, at least those with cars, are forced to play, since there's no arguing once the meter maid puts pen tip to paper so as to fill the city's coffers with fine money. Fortuitously, the nearby parking lot eases the pressure and makes Charlie feel like he belongs at a time when he isn't quite certain this is the place he wants to be. Nora doesn't need this affirmation, she knows she's a New Yorker through and through, even though her childhood home was in Connecticut. She considers the greatest gift that she has given her twins is the ability to say they were born in Manhattan. Everything is going great, there's still passion in her marriage, her son and daughter are set to graduate from college, her friendships are solid, and she has a fulfilling job managing the growing niche Museum of Jewelry. Then her sense of sublimeness is marred by an incident which seems to change the dynamics of the neighborhood and Nora finds herself reexamining the direction of her life as she tries to maintain an equilibrium that is threatening to fall apart despite her best efforts to keep an even keel.

If you are looking for action and intrigue, this is not the book for you. This is a simple story of the ebb and flow of life as one individual tries to navigate the course without losing her integrity. Nora is the woman we all want to be - living a life she loves in the city she loves doing what she loves to do. She's privileged, yet recognizes she needs to be more inclusive. She's kind, yet acknowledges the unavoidable drawbacks of her chosen lifestyle. She's discerning, yet accepting of her ultimate fate. The men in this novel are not shown to advantage, although to be fair, I'm not sure the women are either.

The downside to the novel is keeping track of all of Nora's friends and acquaintances which gets challengingly confusing at times. Perhaps a handy who's who guide at the beginning or end of the book would help the reader figure things out. I'm also not sure if readers who don't have a New York connection will appreciate the sentiment surrounding an urban subsistence or understand the intensity of Nora's feelings towards a way of life that must seem artificial and exclusive. This could detract from the anticipated audience, but I, for one, who was born in Brooklyn, really relate to this book (even though I now live in a suburb of Buffalo). I get the close family feeling of the neighborhood and I also understand it doesn't last forever, that various regions in New York City grow and change over a relatively short period of time. Peoples lives are also fluid, not static, forcing new adventures even on reluctant participants. Most of all, I get the Alternate Parking, since in my childhood the family car was parked in a lot about a mile away from our apartment, forcing us to make a deliberate decision to drive rather than walk/take the subway/catch a bus. My dad didn't play the Parking Game, but I knew other parents who did and I didn't envy them their crack of dawn dart out the door to maneuver a vehicle which was just going to sit there positioned in the same spot until the next "moving" day. I sometimes think about those metropolitan dwellers when I pull into my own driveway just steps from the front door. Yet, many are willing to put up with the inconvenience in exchange for the ambiance of life in "The City".

Four stars and a thank you to Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am always 'up' for an Anna Quindlen novel. She is an excellent writer who can bring any story right into your heart and make you feel it in your soul. Alternate Side is an excellent example of this talent.
The clannish all white residents of an isolated cul-de-sac in downtown Manhattan seem to be blessed with a good luck charm. They have the important jobs, the stylish cars, the smart, happy children in prestigious schools. And they have the daily grind of living handled by the brown help. They also have only six parking spaces off of the street, and life changes for Charlie and Nora when he finally gains access to one of those six spaces. No longer must he have to plan ahead and waste time shuffling the car to the alternate side ahead of the meter maid and the street sweeper.

And yet those six parking spaces bring down the balance of the neighborhood, dividing the residents into warring camps after one of the 'haves' clubs handyman Ricky with his 3 iron for blocking the parking area with his van, making Jack Fisk late for his tee-off. life begins to crumble around the edges from that point onward. But what is the difference between unburdened and free, and bereft? Who gets to decide?

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Anna Quindlen, and Random House Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

This will be a difficult review, because I love every one of Anna Quindlen's books -- but I didn't love this one. She writes about New York life and motherhood, neither of which have anything to do with me, yet I still find her stories and her storytelling flawless.

However, I almost didn't finish this book because at first it was all about a parking lot on a dead end street. And a husband who was obsessed with renting a spot and proud as a peacock when his wish was granted. While I was struggling to maintain interest, a LOT of neighbors in this upper middle class community were introduced, but most of their names escaped me as I was only half paying attention.

I did stick with it and was glad to know more about the characters and less about the parking lot finally, but I couldn't help wishing I'd chosen an alternate book to read. There was a sorry incident in the parking lot (there we are again) that pretty much changed everything and everyone in some sad ways, but that wasn't enough to make me fully invested in the outcome.

An ARC from NetGalley and the publisher.

I am a big fan of Anna Quindlen and while I liked this story, it's not my favorite. An affluent neighborhood is shook up over a fight involving a parking space and it puts neighbor against neighbor but also Nora in opposition to her husband Charlie. As their marriage crumbles their twins away at college are drawn into the story. Nora faces the crisis with humor, strength and an attitude of I can do this. A good story line with strong characters make this an good read.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with an e-galley of Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen in exchange for an honest review. I must admit that I am a fan of Ms. Quindlen's writing, be it fiction or non-fiction. This particular novel tells the story of Nora and Charlie Nolan, who live on a dead-end upper-crust block in NYC which provides them with close relationships with their neighbors, at times too close. It is apparent that living there can and does become somewhat claustrophobic. One violent incident sets off a chain of events that will affect almost everyone on the block, including Nora and Charlie. The book is well-written and a most enjoyable read. Highly recommended for fans of relationship fiction.

Anna Quindlen has been a favorite author of mine for several years, so I was excited to have the chance to read and review her latest, "Alternate Side," the story of a couple who live in a well-to-do neighborhood in Manhattan.

Several pages in, I became slightly disenchanted, as the story went on for what seemed like forever about a parking lot on the dead-end street where the neighbors lived. The lot does play a significant role in the book, and I’m sure it was meant to also be symbolic of something, as well. I haven’t tried to figure out what, exactly.

For the most part, I stayed annoyed with most of the characters, as they were primarily elitist and self-centered, showing only an occasional glimpse of humanity. Without giving any spoilers, I’ll say that the “unexpected act of violence” brought out very little in the way of concern in anyone, except for a token bit from Nora, the main character. Nora herself was one of my least favorite characters, and although her husband, Charlie, didn’t win any points regarding the “act of violence,” I did find myself feeling a bit sorry for him as I think he could have been a better person if he had been married to someone else.

I was also put off by the very sexist attitudes in the book, exhibited in such lines as, “Charlie was an investment banker...No one really knew what that meant except other finance guys, and they liked the fact that they spoke a secret language that others, especially women, couldn’t understand.” And this, at a dinner party, “The men would talk across the table to each other about work, and the women about their children.” I haven’t yet decided if Ms. Quindlen was poking fun at this behavior or if she was buying into it and just reporting life as she sees it. I’m sincerely hoping it’s the former, but since I lost interest in the book early on, I won’t be pursuing her intent.

On the positive side, the story is very well-written, and I believe there are plenty of others who will enjoy reading it, and will take it with more of a grain of salt than I did.

I sincerely thank NetGalley and Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
3 stars

3.5 stars A raw and realistic look into the life of the Nolans in NYC. I wanted to like this book more than I actually did- really liked the storyline, but found parts of it to be wordy.

Alternate Side by Anne Quinlan

This novel takes place on the upper West Side of a New York City neighborhood, a dead end street, where “every single one, even the renters, was white, and that everyone who worked for them, every single one, was black or Latino” (quote from the novel). The residents (doctors, lawyers, judges, finance guys, etc. you get the picture) of the neighborhood all know each other, all employ the handyman Ricky when something needs to be fixed in their buildings. You have really made it in this neighborhood, if you can lend a parking space in the 6 car neighborhood lot. One such family who just landed the coveted parking spot is Charlie Nolan, his wife Nora, their twins, Oliver and Rachel, their dog Homer and Charity, their Nanny who stayed on even after the twins have left for college. The way everyone meets their neighbors is walking their dogs, including the Nolan’s. Neighborhood gossip at its best at such get togethers and everyone knows everyone ‘ s business and Charity can fill in the gaps. This is a satire of the snobby New Yorkers and their lives. Nothing much happens in this novel until nearly half through when a violent event occurs in the neighborhood. This one events splits the neighbors apart, who do you believe whose side you are on, etc. The event also starts a downhill spiral of the neighborhood, and some of the protagonists’ lives.
The author accurately and with humor paints the life of the snobby New Yorkers, but other than that I found this book fairly boring, no more than three stars.
Thanks NetGalley, Random House and the author, Ann Quindlen for the advanced copy.

I liked this book because I could relate to the main character. I often gravitate to books that do not have a lot of action, but that have characters that are in similar stages of their lives. I have always liked Quindlen's voice and character development.

3.5 but rounding up--mostly because I really like Anna Quindlen.

With humor, understanding, an acute eye, and a warm heart, Anna Quindlen explores what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a woman at a moment of reckoning.

The setting:
Uppper West Side neighborhood on dead end street. A seemingly happy marriage [Nora and Charlie]. Fraternal twins [one boy, one girl] in college. A best friend. A much-loved housekeeper. A dog. A parking lot. A fake homeless man. A handyman. A mostly close neighborhood with one crochety, horrid neighbor. And so much more [maybe too much].

Because it's Quindlen, many a well-turned phrase. Some of my favorites:

"her eyebrows were like sparrow feathers"
[dog] "...lifted his leg in a casual arabesque."
"...Charity hung over his shoulder like a shawl..."
"The price they had paid for prosperity was amnesia. They'd forgotten who they once had been."
[at age eleven, when] "... girls are as mean as sleet and should be cryongenically frozen and then reconstituted later."

When a violent incident occurs and accounts differ, the neighborhood equilibrium [and Nora's marriage] is upset.

I was engaged from the start, probably because I really like Quindlen. And, it was a well-driven narrative with fully developed characters. I wanted to see how the storyline resolved and was not disappointed. Most likely because I do not care for a rushed and neat and tidy ending--which this [barely?] escaped. Sort of a eulogy/elegy to NYC.

Pub date March 20th, 2018
Writing: 4 Plot: 3 Characters: 3.5
New chat acronym (for me): ICE - I can’t even

Nora loves New York City. She is one of those people who finds “home” when they first move to the city. This is her narrative: her ongoing love story with the city; her slowly unraveling marriage with a husband who is a good man but is becoming unhappy with the life he is living; and the jolt her life receives from a violent act in her neighborhood.

Told through interactions with neighbors from her block (a special cul-de-sac with actual houses right in New York City), friends from college, and work colleagues, we are exposed to an array of opinions, obsessions, stereotypes, and prejudices that are drawn with detail and make sense for that person in that situation. The short but intense violent act brings out discussions on loyalty, racism, and morality. It brings to light a divided city, a divided neighborhood, and eventually, a divided marriage. I appreciate the fact that no character spouts a party line -- the opinions are individualistic and internally consistent.

It’s kind of a smaller story than it could have been it really focuses on Nora and how she evolves as a character rather than the Bonfire-of-the-Vanities-style social commentary that it could have been. However, there is plenty of social observation and analysis: the “shadow government” run by the nannies and housekeepers on the block, how to live in the “new cleaner, safer, impossible without money New York” and the general feeling that things are going “awry” on the block. I loved the line “The slightly aberrational spouse was a status symbol too. The husband who cooked. The wife who played golf.” Another great line “The truth was that their marriages were like balloons. Some went suddenly pop, but in more of them than not the air simply headed out until it was a sad, wrinkled little thing with no lift to it anymore.”

I didn’t feel a lot of empathy for the main character, to be honest, and I enjoyed trying to figure out why. She is well written, and there is nothing wrong with her. She isn’t a bad person and in fact works hard to be a good person. It feels like she just fell into an awfully good life without having to work for it and I guess that bugs me. And she doesn’t seem to have a lot of empathy for her husband who clearly wishes a different kind of life. Or rather, she has empathy, but she is unwilling to give up anything that she wants in order to make his life better. It helps me understand my own values a little better - I like anything that makes me think!

Well written, good for fans of introspective, women’s fiction and / or tales of New York City.

Anna Quindlen has written another masterpiece. She lets the world in on a secret all New Yorkers know, The city isn't the giant metropolis everyone thinks it is. Instead, it is a series of little neighborhoods. Quindlen tells an engrossing tale of neighbors on a dead-end street in Manhattan, while weaving in a study of the haves and the have-nots. Highly recommended.

Net Galley ARC. Nora Nolan is a museum director, her husband, and investment banker.
Quindlen is not kind to these wealthy New Yorkers who live their lives rubbing shoulders with other similarly well-off neighbors on their comfortably upper-class street.

It takes Quindlen a third of the way through the book to get to the inciting incident, a squabble over a parked car on a lot shared by residents of their dead-end street. But I know why she did it. I'm not sure readers would fully understand just how disrupting this event is--how it strips the facade of tolerance and inclusion away from everyone involved--had we not spent quite a bit of time with these people. The book reminded me so much of Tom Wolfe's [book:The Bonfire of the Vanities|2666]. And the incident, like Bonfire, sets up the tension between the haves and the have-nots of NYC.

I was charmed by Quindlen's writing and her insights. There are scenes in this book that exemplify what it's like to love a place, to feel at home in a town you've adopted. The description of Nora's walk to work through NY's streets is an ode to the city and the odd characters that make it up.

There is a wistful nostalgia for the old city, in all its crumbling- and crime-ridden glory, and the new NY Nora and her neighbors find it has become in their reclusive dead end street. Her ability to describe the pitfalls of long-term marriages gone flat, relationships in general, and complex characters, was awe-inspiring. More than once I said aloud, exactly! Like Bonfire, it is heartbreaking as well as genuinely funny and perceptive.

I tried really hard to like this book and even actually read halfway through because I kept thinking that something was going to happen, but not much ever did except for the assault on the neighborhood handyman. I absolutely love Anna Quindlen and reading both her fiction and nonfiction has made me a better writer myself, but this novel was just not my cup of tea I guess. I prefer stories with more relate-able characters, with some softness, with some direction, some action.

I'm a huge fan of Anna Quindlen but this was not my favorite. Although an interesting look inside a marriage--and at "alternate sides" of many things--it wasn't as plot-driven as I usually like. Nora and Charlie's marriage is rocky at best, with twins about ready to leave for college, and "parking wars" that threaten to strain relationships with the neighbors. But when an unfortunate incident occurs, the neighbors must take sides and Nora and Charlie are on opposite sides which further separates them. Can their marriage survive or is it indicative of deeper issues dividing them? This is a fascinating look at contemporary issues that plague relationships, city living, and the disparities of wealth and poverty.

Book was good and well written but was quite slow. Nothing really happens throughout the book, until the very end.