In its best moments, "I'll Be Right Here" has a lot in common with John Irving's sprawling novels. You learn about a huge cast of characters, what they're thinking and how they feel about each other and their lives. Novelist Amy Bloom brings a warmth to these characters and many of them have a real lifelike glow. Unfortunately, Bloom lacks Irving's gift for tying it all together. And so at times the reader is lost in a sea of discursive narratives spanning decades and locations (WWII France, 1950s NYC, more). As the story moves backward and forward in time, there's very little propelling the story forward. Five-star prose and a two-star "plot" left me wanting more from the book.

I'll Be Right Here by Amy Bloom is a so-so novel about found families.

In 1942 Gazala, seventeen, works for the writer Colette. She immigrates alone from Paris to New York after World War II, and becomes friends with sisters Anne and Alma Cohen. Gazala’s adopted brother, Samir, later joins her and the two become lovers. These four characters become life long friends and a family to each other.

This is a beautifully written novel but the(dis)organization and the lack of a noteworthy plot make it a mess to read. Nevertheless, I persisted and stayed with it because it is also a very short novel. Be forewarned that the chapters jump back and forth in time throughout the narrative. It is not a before and after set up, it is jumping back and forth to random years. It is also consumed with various interpersonal relationships. All of this and the narrative fails to tell a story. The beginning of the novel focuses on Gazala but she later becomes a secondary character.

Bloom gets a point for her descriptive writing, but the presentation and lack of a cohesive story were disappointing. Thanks to Random House for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

I'll Be Right Here is a massive family epic, jumping back and forth through time, within one chosen family.

This is an excellent portrait of people who can find others to connect with and make a life. Not all families are connected by blood.

Sometimes the family tree isn't a tree as much as a forest.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I read a review written by someone else that said it took determination to finish this book and I couldn't agree more. The descriptions are lovely, from the seder dinners of roast chicken and honey glazed carrots, to the beautiful upstate New York farmhouses, to the stunning and languid beaches of Mexico, but the timeline is sometimes difficult to follow and the characters can be hard to keep straight. I admire the way Bloom depicts explorations of sexuality and family relationships but would have liked a little more depth and a little less flitting from one gorgeous scene to another. Recommended but with reservations about that determination bit.
I was given an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have never completed an Amy Bloom book, but when given the opportunity to read one on NetGalley, I decided to try again. And, sadly, this one is similar to all the others I have tried to read. I did finish this book, but it was slow and too wordy. The long descriptive sentences with no dialogue centered too much on the main character's inner thoughts, with not much plot development. Not that I need an active book, I enjoy books with beautiful descriptions and slow build-up, but this one never "built up." Though much of the writing is lovely, it failed to engage me as a reader.
This is a relatively short book, but there’s so much crammed in with so little regard for the reader’s ability to follow it that if I hadn’t been reading it for review, I would not have bothered to finish it. A thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the complimentary e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was intrigued as I began reading I’ll Be Right Here. By the time I was part way through things became muddled. There was way too much of everything in it. Parts were very interesting, including the relationship angst and love. I’m glad I hung in there and read to the end, but not a great read for me.

I am an Amy Bloom fan and have loved everything I've read by her. I also loved "I'll Be Right Here" but with one big reservation (hence, 4 stars instead of 5). I know that a wave of jumping back and forth between time periods has been very fashionable recently but this title really takes it to the extreme. It took me awhile to engage with the characters and figure out where the story was heading. By the last third of the book I finally felt comfortable with where each of the many characters was in their development at any given point in the timeline. Each chapter is a little slice of life and at times I laughed out loud and at others teared up a little. Persevere to the end and you'll be glad you did.

One thing I’ve learned about reading an Amy Bloom book is that you are going to be taken on an indescribable journey and you should just take the trip as it comes and see what it reveals. Though this is a short novel, it’s packed with a lot of people for you to meet along the way. The key characters are Gazala and Samir Benamar, and sisters Alma and Anne Cohen. But that’s just the start.

Gazala and her adopted brother Samir are Algerians, Gazala was in Paris during World War II, worked for the famous Colette and, through Colette’s beneficence, moved to New York in 1947. There, she met the Cohen sisters, and the trio became lifelong friends. You’ll want to remember that Gazala and Samir are not biological siblings, because later on they become a couple. (Still, yikes, since they were raised as siblings from his babyhood, but it actually doesn’t feel weird in the book.) The love lives of Anne and Alma are detailed, too, and they include Anne’s decision to dump her husband Richard for his sister, Honey. (Yikes again, with the sibling love!) Then there are Lily, Bea, Harry, and many others, all living their own complicated lives, but also caught up in the web of affection, sometimes exasperated affection, cast by our key characters, whom the younger generations call the Greats.

It’s frustrating to try and describe an Amy Bloom novel, and this is no different. Yes, at one level, this book is about the Greats and the people in their lives. But this is an Amy Bloom novel, and what that means is that the writing is so beautiful, vivid and evocative that you will hold your breath from tension, laugh out loud, and feel the poignancy of love and loss. Take the journey.

Sadly this latest Amy Bloom book was not for me. Perhaps I was not the right audience and perhaps other reviews will give better insights about reading this. I found it slow and convoluted with unpleasant topics.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this ARC.

A kaleidoscope swirl of memories and impressions, anchored by complex compelling characters. And a really lovely view of many ways family can be formed and nurtured.

2.5 stars, rounded up
I really enjoyed the other two books by Amy Bloom that I read (White Houses and In Love: A Memory of Love and Loss). This one, not so much. It’s a messy book about a group of people that create their own sort of chosen family. It lacks a plot, it jumps around in time. It’s more like a series of sketches of these characters rather than a novel. Gazala and Samir are Algerian by birth but live in France and then the US. They bond with the Cohen sisters.
Gazala lived through the Nazi occupation of Paris as a teenager, fighting her own form of resistance. Her “brother” (her parents take him in when his parents die) goes off to Algeria after WWII and is present for the start of the Revolution. They met up again in Poughkeepsie in the 1950s.
While I found some chapters interesting, others just failed to engage me. Bloom seems determined to throw in every sort of love relationship that can exist. If I’d known this before I requested the book, I probably wouldn't have bothered. Too much sex, not enough story, for my taste.
The writing is beautiful and I love Bloom’s ability to write the perfect phrase. But beautiful writing can’t make up for the lack of a meaningful story.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Got an arc for this book. Thought it was a good book but wasn’t life changing or super memorable….was good but need a sequel to answer the unanswered questions!

This is a novel that treads on well-worn ground -- found family, multiple timelines -- but without any new or novel takes, IMHO. Although for a multi-generational novel it's not particularly long, I found it to be a slow one and one that just didn't hit for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (rounded up from 2.5)
My review: The reader has to pay attention in this novel. There is not a lot of dialogue and much is written in the MCs' trains of thought. So many of the sentences are long, meandering, and lack important detail. It is easy to miss things. That being said, the book definitely shows the "found family/created family" and how people can find others that support and love them and blood ties are not primary.
The book's jumps back and forth in time (again, pay attention) and that could be confusing. Gazala is very strong. She fights and blends in at the same time in order to get ahead and stay safe. Her relationship with Samir was surprising and I'm not sure I understood the need for that aspect of the book. It added salaciousness but not a lot of explanation was given to it. In the same vein, the reader has to put the pieces together to understand Alma, Anne, Honey and Bea and Lily. I appreciate the writing about the MCs' Jewish lives. Samir leading a Seder and telling stories was very timely.
I am sure there is an audience for this novel, and while I didn't dislike it, it took patience to get through it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for an advance digital copy in exchange for my review.

I read a book years ago by Amy Bloom, and it really didn’t do anything for me. But when given the opportunity to read an advance copy of I’ll Be Right Here, I decided to give her another chance. This was clearly a mistake on my part, because I liked this book even less than its predecessor. I know the heart of the book is about the dynamics of an unconventional and mostly found family, which I could get behind in a different context. Here it bumps and grinds through multiple narrators, back and forth across times, through every type of consensual relationship you could have among consenting adults, and with characters randomly introduced that take you another quarter of the book to figure out their connection to the story. The book starts with Gazala as a young girl during WWII, then follows her to New York, where she has discovered a found family with the Cohen sisters, Alma and Anne. Then it gets slightly icky for me when her long lost adopted brother Samir shows up and they proceed to have an open romantic relationship for the rest of their lives. Which isn’t technically incestuous, but falls in the ew, no thank you, category for me. Anne divorces her husband Richard and shacks up with his sister Honey instead. Another character (Honey) that it took me a while to figure out and then when I did I still felt icked out by it. Not because it was two women, but because I’m not generally fond of relationships where one sibling replaces another. As the group ages the next generation starts to appear in the form of Anne and Richard’s daughter Lily and Bea (the also unidentified character that ends up being the unofficially adopted daughter of Gazala and her unofficially adopted brother/significant other Samir). A third generation also comes along in the form of Lily’s son Harry, who is the product of at least one of multiple marriages between a man and a woman that should have never gotten married but did because a woman wanted babies. Are you exhausted yet? No? How about a chapter long soliloquy by Lily of the expectations in a polyamorous relationship, which has kind of become her vibe after marrying a man for babies didn’t turn out to be rainbows and unicorns? It also feels odd that the book starts out completely centered around Gazala and her dying serves as a kind of focal point, but after the beginning of the book she turns into more of a bit character. This is a relatively short book, but there’s so much crammed in with so little regard for the reader’s ability to follow it that if I hadn’t been reading it for review I would not have bothered to finish it. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I'LL BE RIGHT HERE by Amy Bloom is a very interesting and informative book.
It is also a form of an imagination captivating one.
Enjoyed reading very much.
Thanks.

I found this book to be very disjointed and hard to follow and keep the characters straight. The different relationships of the characters was also difficult to keep track of. I usually like this author but did not find this to be one of her best.

This is a haphazard kind of story about an unconventional family. The jumps in time are confusing as we get glimpse of their lives over the years. I wish the author had made Samir and Gazala's non-biological relationship more clear/fleshed out. Actually, I wish more things were, as I have a lot of questions!

This was a really quick read full of messy characters and incredibly messy lives. The chosen family being whom you want, not just blood relations, felt really well done to me - though I'll admit, some of the incest love was just not it for me, nor were all of the strange spousal swapping things...

I struggled with remembering all of the characters in this story, and found myself not caring about halfway in - I was reading for the joy, for Amy Blooms voice, for the fact that everyone was just truly being themselves - no apology. The love is what kept me turning the pages above all else - because that real love that is never-ending is not something that you often get.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and Amy Bloom for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I always love books by Any Bloom and this was no exception. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. She’s always a hit with our patrons.