fiction (coming of age; short stories). These were interesting, but I was expecting more of a cohesive novel rather than fragments of the character's life as told in short story chapter. ( )

Linked stories featuring the strange life and times of Ann Ransom, from 1960, when she's eight and her mom remarries and buys the first of what seems like 3,700 houses and her grandmother takes her to Europe while pursuing a paramour. Further along, during college, the same grandmother forces Ann's roommate to run her off the road into a ditch while Ann's in the middle of interviewing poet Allan Ginsberg. Ann has fabulous adventures, and she and everyone around her makes really dumb decisions, including breaking into Bob Dylan's Malibu beach house and stealing a hose nozzle, to which she reacts scathingly. It's a diary of absurdity and a big fun read with scattered giant insights like: "It was hard for me to roar and jostle with a roomful of people for more than an hour or two. A strange thing would happen. I'd suddenly feel like I was pretending to have fun even if I was really having fun; then I'd start looking around and wondering the same about everyone else, and it would wreck everything." ( )

I have to give this a 2 bc I don't actually remember much of this. I wrote in my journal that it's an easy read, pretty good. Looks like I was busy then, so I don't have any details. ( )