by Anita Diamant
Read by: Linda Lavin
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Content: There are some mild swear words and references to drinking and smoking. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

Addie Baum is the daughter of Eastern European immigrants, who came to American when the persecution became too bad back home. Addie was born in 1900 in Boston, and grew up in a world wholly different from that her parents, and even her older sisters (the youngest who was 14 years older than Addie), knew. It was a world where Addie went to school instead of getting married young and having babies. A world where she held a job and chose love for herself. A fascinating, modern world, but one that put her at odds with her parents — especially her mother — and the way of life they had always known.

I loved this one from the start. It begins as a series of reflections of an 85-year-old Addie in response to the question asked by her 22-year-old granddaughter: “How did you get to be the woman you are today?” The whole novel felt like a personal history, complete with asides that a grandmother would say in the telling. And while it covered Addie’s whole life, the focus was on her formative years from when she was 15 until she met and married her husband. The opportunities she had (because of the people she met), her struggles with family and religion and men, her jobs and the experiences she had because of them. It was a fascinating slice of life.

And the narrator was perfect. She caught that personal history vibe and ran with it; so very often I could almost see Addie, sitting in her living room, telling this story to an interested granddaughter. No, she didn’t do voices, though she had a good Boston accent overall, but I don’t think it was needed for this. The way Lavin read it was just perfect.

As was this story.