Welcome to the first installment of our book club for Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s Life After Yes! Please check out my thoughts on chapters 1-11 and then use the comments section to weigh in with your impressions, ideas, and questions. And, even if you haven’t been reading along with us, I hope you’ll chime in if you find an idea or theme resonant to you.
Ready? Okay, let’s go!
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In Chapter 10, our protagonist Quinn and several young colleagues share a town car to a club after their firm’s holiday party. Quinn notices the driver looking back at them, “as if to say, Who do you think you are?“ And with that single question, this bit player silently sums up what I see as the main theme of the first section of Life After Yes: identity.
Throughout these early chapters, Quinn, born Prudence Quinn O’Malley, struggles to define who she is and what she wants. And the fact that she has two names – and the question of who uses those names and when – epitomize her identity crisis. Her parents named her Prudence (after the Beatles’ song “Dear Prudence”) and bristle when she decides to call herself Quinn. Phelps, her first love, usually calls her Quinn, but teasingly, flirtatiously calls her Prudence at times too. Sage, her fiancé, calls her Quinn, as do her colleagues.
Nowhere is Quinn’s grasp on who she is and what she wants more slippery than in her personal life. She meets her current flame while her former one is still smoldering, or, at least, flickering. When she meets handsome, sweet Sage at a Halloween party, he asks her why she’s “still fishing when [she's] already caught one.” Quinn responds, “I really don’t know.” Later, long after she’s thrown back her first love Phelps and fully reeled in Sage, her best friend Avery advises her to “take [Sage's] strings” away from his mother so that she can take the lead in their relationship, a suggestion to which Quinn replies, “But what if I don’t know what I want?” Even though she is a high-powered attorney at a top law firm, Quinn is riddled with indecisiveness. She compares herself to a “scared little cub” and confesses to “love being told what to do. Like a child. It’s easier that way.”
The loss of her father contributes heavily to Quinn’s rudderlessness. Even at work, where she exhibits more consistency than in her personal relationships, her father’s absence looms large. Letting a proverbial ball drop at her law firm, she offers an apology to her boss:
“I’m sorry,” I say, softly like a little child who has lost her father and lost her way, not like a professional pushing thirty. The two words are weak and soggy, limp noodles of pseudo-regret. But right now, it’s all I can manage.
Later, she hears the echoes of her father’s voice when she questions her choice to practice corporate law. Thinking about a client, a porn star named Crystal Sugar, she muses:
Dad told me never to talk to strangers, and this girl has made a profession out of seducing them. She’s selling herself.
I look around. Out the window. At the ringing phone and the blinking BlackBerry. At the pinstripes, simple and straight, running the length of my thigh. And for a moment, I wonder if what I’m doing is really any different.
Even though she is decidedly an adult, Quinn questions her choices and feels like a orphan, often comparing herself to a child, and a fatherless one at that.
When Sage proposes to Quinn during a romantic weekend in Paris, Quinn is pulled between her past and her future, and between ideas of what she should want and what she actually does. Here, Aidan skillfully contrasts questioning Quinn with steadfast Sage. While Quinn wonders “whether we marry to move forward, or to go back” and feels “hostage in the past,” Sage is “ensconced in dreams about [their] future together.” Indeed, Quinn isn’t sure if they are “that clichéd bedheaded couple in a coffee commercial” or “nothing but two kids sitting there, playing adults, gearing up for a new phase of our life together.”
Throughout this section of the book, Quinn struggles to reconcile feeling safe vs. feeling trapped. Even while acknowledging her “disoriented and shivering self” the morning after Sage’s proposal, she bristles at the idea of being trapped through marriage. Indeed, even while Quinn confesses to feeling like a kid, she is a pretty stubborn one. She doesn’t know what she wants, but she doesn’t want anyone else to tell her either.
“Who do you think you are?“ During the first part of Life After Yes, it is not clear that Quinn knows the answer to that most important of questions.
Do you see identity as a main theme in the first part of Life After Yes? Where else does that theme play out in the early chapters? What other themes stood out to you in this section of the book?
Do you like Quinn? Do you like Kayla? Why do you think Quinn and Kayla are friends? How about Quinn’s paramours? How do you feel about them? How do you think Quinn feels about them?
At what point in your life have you felt least secure in your own identity? When have you felt most secure?
{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
So excited to get this underway. Thanks Kristen for hosting and bringing us all together.
I’m struck by how easily I can relate to Quinn, to her moods and her anxieties. But at the same time, I find her to be spoiled and naive. But, I think that’s the point. As we grow up we need to learn new ways to identify ourselves, to assert ourselves. In the process we flounder a bit, focusing on the “easy” parts because the hard parts are, well, they are just hard.
What I really loved about the first chapters was Quinn’s introspectiveness. It stands in stark contrast to her outward appearance and I think that makes it so much more obvious and endearing to us, the readers.
My favourite line, or at least the part where I put down the book to think about was:
“Maybe everything – even being happy- is something you have to practice at.” This I think we all recognize, and think about often.
I still don’t feel secure in my identity, and I often wonder if I ever will. Perhaps that’s why I find her character so endearing. In as much as she’s struggling, there is a simplicity and honesty to her that draws me in. She really just wants what we all want, to be happy, to feel fulfilled, to know that her path is the right one.
And can’t you just hear Aidan in all of it?
Absolutely! Throughout the book, I heard Aidan’s narrative voice and it felt like getting a phone call from an old friend. Didn’t you feel like we were in on a wonderful secret? :)
I’m between trips. Traveling a lot just now…and when I popped home for 24 hours, my book hadn’t arrived. So, I can’t comment intelligently.
However, I’m struck by the themes outlined here and in Aidan’s recent post about her three names and her identity wrapped up in those names.
Names and how we have them thrust upon us or we later choose one for ourselves is a critical component in establishing identity.
Stepping into a raft just now. Will be back in time to be a better participant next time!
Hi Rebecca – I hope you’re enjoying your travels!
Like you, I was struck by Aidan’s post about names and naming. It made me think about my own pretty reflexive choice to take my husband’s name when we got married. (A choice which, in retrospect, I’m not entirely sure why I made – other than a benign wish to share a surname with my kids.) And that issue of naming is absolutely central to Life After Yes. I’ll be interested to hear your take once you have a chance to read.
Bon voyage!
I really related to Quinn’s identity “crisis.” I too lived in NYC in my twenties, choosing between a beau that loved me simply, plainly, and for exactly who I was and more dangerous, complicated, and ultimately He’s Just Not That Into You types. It was the first time I was not in school or in a job that would give me extrinsic praise and motivation. My father was not dead, but my parents were falling apart, and with them, I felt the foundation of “who I had always been.” It didn’t help that I was in a city in which it was easy to be anonymous if you wanted to fall into your own black hole of identity.
I felt this aspect of the novel was extremely realistic, if not “neat and pretty” for a book — the particular kind of lost that someone can be in her twenties in not easy to wrap up into a bow or explain. Quinn, I felt, personified this.
I’ll have to come back later to expound on Kayla and the boys. The seven-year-old wants to play Mousehunt on Facebook. Ah, summer.
Thanks, Mama, for bringing up the messiness of Quinn as a character. I really appreciated Aidan’s bravery in offering up a protagonist who isn’t necessarily a heroine. And I agree with you: her flaws make her real and, in an odd kind of way, more likable over time. Some of Quinn’s off-handed comments made me cringe, but then, when I stopped to think about it, I realized that she’s just saying out loud – or, I suppose, Aidan’s just writing down – the things that so many of us think, but don’t say. Thanks again for mentioning this – reminding me of yet another thing that I appreciated so much about the novel.
So many questions to consider! I think the section that had the most impact on my is how Quinn questions everything. Each and every decision that she makes. It drove me crazy at first, I just wanted to yell at her “make a decision”! Follow through. Be an adult.
But here’s the thing, the reason it bothered me so much is because I’m exactly the same way. I second guess every decision that I make. I think, and mull and change my mind a million times. I drive myself crazy.
I can totally relate to the identity crisis too, especially at this point in my life. I’m a SAHM and I’ve never felt less sure of who I am. In a world that defines you by what you do and what your title is, I often feel lost. Unsure. Uninteresting.
This might be a topic worth blogging about in and of itself. Hmmmm…
Hi Allison – If and when you blog about this, please let me know because I am quite sure I’ll be able to relate. :)
Hey Kristen, I just published my review. I hope you will stop by and let me know your thoughts.
http://alli-n-son.com/2010/06/02/identity-guessing/
I hope everyone will click over to check out Allison’s post on identity, which really expands on her insightful comments here. In it, she raises issues that I know will resonate with many of us.
Thanks, Allison!
Great summary and analysis! I think you’re right, that the opening chapters were focused on identity and feeling lost. I enjoyed how Aidan allowed the character to wallow in those feelings and not immediately “snap to it.” I am more of the “snap to it” type of person but I saw so many of my friends in Quinn… you know what, forget that. I do tend to dive in head first but I can so relate to that feeling of “something is wrong and I’m not sure what it is and even if I did, I am too damn tired to do much about it.”
I think this is one of the ways in which Quinn’s father plays an important role: his absence makes her flounder even more than many 20-somethings do. It’s as though she’s carrying around a mantle of grief that gets heavier and heavier. She tries to dull it through drinking and by throwing herself into her work, but she can’t seem to “snap to it” – at least not in these opening chapters.
I devoured this book when I got my hands on it. The cover was so intriguing I had a male friend say he was interested and going to go out and buy it.
I am with Christine in some ways. I can relate to Quinn but in a strange, this could never really be my life sort of way. I agree with Allison in that I love that Quinn questions everything. I walked around a store yesterday with a dress in my arms to purchase. Three times I walked back to hang it up before paying for it and walking out.
While I can relate to Quinn, I think my initial real connection is to Kayla. She is more me than Quinn is, or I am more her. The friendship seems so natural.
I have found my identity is becoming more and more a certainty as I get older. I am building less of “me” around my children – a tendency when children are young – and more around what I want and love to do.
Hi Nicki – A question and a comment:
In what ways do you think you are like Kayla? (I’m worried that I gave Kayla short-shrift while reading and I want help elucidating her positive qualities.)
I love that you feel that you’re cementing your identity more and more. When I first became a mother, I wrapped up so much of myself in my kids, but I’m starting to remember some of those parts of me that existed and thrived before and without them. It’s a growth process, though, isn’t it?
I actually didn’t relate to Quinn much myself, but that is what I liked about her. I enjoyed getting lost in someone else’s life for a while. Where I have always played by the rules she bends and breaks them, and living vicariously through her was fun for me.
I’m glad you keyed in on the topic of identity, Kristen, because it’s such a huge catalyst for the rest of the book. If Quinn didn’t question her existence at the outset, the journey never would have begun for Quinn. The question of her name further solidifies that her identity is in a state of flux, and that its shifts are based more on her relationship to the people around her than to her own sense of self.
It is that sense of self that evolves most significantly throughout the book, not only for Quinn but for the supporting characters as well. I liked that Quinn wasn’t the only character on this journey of self-discovery. In some of her most lonely moments she had compatriots to help her along.
I’m with you, Gale. I’m not much like Quinn myself – I’m definitely a rule follower – but Aidan did such a good job of making Quinn relatable enough that I could put myself in her (probably much nicer) shoes often enough to make me want to stick with her on her journey of self-discovery.
I also really appreciate what you say about Quinn’s compatriots. I hadn’t thought much about the way in which their identities shift throughout the course of the novel, but you’re absolutely right: they do indeed. And the first person that comes to mind – after Kayla, that is – is Quinn’s mom. I need to think more about this great point. Thanks, Gale.
I did like Quinn. I just shook my head at her self-involved angst because it caught so cleverly that stage we go thru in our 20′s when we’re still sort of playing at real life but not feeling it.
Agreed. The self-involvement was a mystery to me (hard to identify with), but then I realized: I never had those indulgent 20s. I had babies early, marriage young, and was just working like crazy to survive. Maybe I’ll be Quinn in my later 30s? :)
And how fun would it be to get to go through a self-involved stage in New York with lots of money to finance it – in our 20s, late 30s, whenever?! :)
As I was reading the beginning of this book, I kept thinking about the topic of naming. I had just had my students write about their names and characters’ names in a book we had been studying. And I found it fascinating that Quinn or Prudence also had nicknames by which she was known. So, who is she? And how do the fishing nicknames affect her sense of identity?
I was also fascinated with the role her dreams take on. How much should we listen to our dreams? I love trying to remember my weird dreams, but I have never put much stock in them. Quinn, though, really seems to let her dream affect her and shape her well-being.
I also thought the part where Quinn’s mother talks about Quinn’s love for “watching people” rather than wanting to breastfeed very interesting. Quinn still wants to keep “looking around” and experiencing. It’s as if she is afraid that marriage will force her to stop experiencing. She is so scared — I think of the fire alarm episode — and that fear is shaping her identity, too. She is asked, “What are you so scared of?” by Kayla. And she talks about “being trapped.” Kayla mentions the idea of finding someone “to stand still with” but will that stillness satisfy Quinn?
I feel like I could go on and on . . .
Please do go on and on, Amelia. You make such great points!
Your comment has me thinking about all the fishing metaphors throughout the book. Is Quinn’s dream about the multiple grooms an extension of the fishing trope – about catching one of her beaus? And, if so, do the men represent themselves or different versions of her life that Quinn wants to catch and/or throw back? (And, again if so, what exactly does Victor represent?) And is Quinn’s fear of being trapped really about being caught, being forced to fish or cut bait?
I, apparently, could go on and on too… :)
I didn’t enjoy Quinn at all, but I found the story compelling. I read the story quickly and with the hope that she’d mature from self-obsessed navel gazing to seeing how she fits into a bigger picture.
I definitely enjoyed the interplay of identity and naming. I spent many years trying to change who I was by changing how I spelled my boring, simple name. I see that same determination in Quinne — as though the name drives the identity (and, therefore, the identity’s future success/failure).
I was very connected to that need — which so many of experienced after the terror attacks — to be somehow more present and more fulfilled in daily life. I see that fiercely in Quinn, that just living and loving isn’t enough in the face of such tragedy.
Ooh, I love this point, Kelly: “just living and loving isn’t enough in the face of such tragedy.” Do you ever feel like living and loving isn’t enough in the face of anything? Sometimes I work myself up into such a frenzy of responsibilities (real, self-imposed, and imagined) that I forget that living and loving is enough. All the time. Under any circumstances. And I agree that Quinn – both in response to 9/11 and her father’s death and in the interplay of those events with her personal life – really signifies that struggle that I think many of us share.
At first I didn’t like Quinn… later I realized it was because she made decisions in her relationship {ahem… possible bad ones…} that hit a little too close to home. Looking at the mirror is hard at times.
I think we’re told so often that you need to find out who you are/love yourself before you can love anyone else. Honestly, I’m not sure I believe that entirely, because for me, I’ve done a lot of growing up since being married. But ultimately you do need to know what you want out of life, know yourself well enough to know that, before you can feel comfortable jumping into wedded bliss. We all have our doubts {I myself have them every single day it seems, still!} about marriage and what it means. But feeling comfortable in your own identity certainly makes it easier to be comfortable in your identification of marriage {I might have missed the ball on that last line… but hopefully you get what I’m saying}
Corinne, I so agree. It’s impossible to totally find out who you are before falling for someone else. Often, that other person helps you define yourself simply by holding up a mirror for you. (And I didn’t like Quinn at times either, because she had the luxury of a self-obsessed lifestyle that I couldn’t relate to, but she won me over with her universal questions about identity.)
Really interesting point, Corinne. As Amelia mentioned, Kayla tells Quinn that people spend their lives trying to find someone to “stand still with,” but I’m not sure that’s my definition of a good partnership. Like you and Amy, I feel like I’ve continued to grow and change through my marriage. So, to me at least, love isn’t about finding someone to stand still with, it’s more about finding someone to move forward alongside. Someone who doesn’t hold us back or push us somewhere we don’t want to go. Someone to stand still with? I’m not so sure.
Great insights into the first 10 chapters! I’d say identity is definitely a main theme, if not THE main theme throughout. I think it’s also portrayed in her career: she chose it because she didn’t know what to choose…because it was safe. Even her friends exemplify her duel identities: Kayla is wild and crazy, while the other one (damn, what’s her name?) is subdued and reasonable.
On an unrelated note, I love how the story progresses, non-chronologically.
That’s right!: I totally forgot that point about Quinn sort of falling into law. (Sounds like about half of my college classmates!)
And I also like Aidan’s choice to allow the story to unfold as Quinn’s thinking about it, rather than through straight chronology. A nice device.
Nice work, Kristen, on boiling chapters 1-11 down! There is so much to work with here, and you’ve summarized so nicely!
Identity. Yes. Along with – as you’ve pointed out – the direction (or lack thereof) of our lives. Where we are going, what we are doing, with whom. And WHY. Quinn doesn’t know the answers to any of these questions, and yet, here she is having just made one of the big “I choose THIS DIRECTION” choices of her life. And so the existensial crisis percolates.
I love Quinn. I love that she doesn’t cut herself any slack in her internal monologue, even if she expects other people to. Even if she lies to everyone else, she’s honest with herself. That, to me, is what makes her resonant despite her not-so-lovely moments of whininess or bitchiness or childishness.
Aidan, I know you’re reading all these comments, and I know you’re hearing this left and right, but this is a REALLY fantastic novel.
Hi Lauren – I think you make such an important point about Quinn here: despite her internal directionlessness – or perhaps because of it? – she makes an incredible leap of commitment by agreeing to marry Sage. And is it just me, or does she do so with two feet, with a resounding YES? Even while she’s surrounded by a flood of maybes, she doesn’t shy away from this yes – and it’s only after saying it out loud that she starts hemming and hawing.
I agree with Gayle–while I didn’t identify with Quinn very strongly–I have enjoyed getting lost in the story. I find myself routing for her to grow up, to “find herself”. I struggled at first to connect with her (although I loved hearing Aidan’s “voice” throughout)–I think in large part because I am an underdog, married to an underdog, living a by-your-own-boot-straps sort of life. I worked in my 20s in a similar demanding corporate environment, alongside the privileged loan-free ivy leaguers who sported handbags worth more than my car–people just like Quinn. And I always felt like there was a big chasm between us–not money so much as perspective. So, I think I carried that chasm with me when I first started to read about Quinn. That said, now that I’m over halfway through the book, Quinn is definitely growing on me!
Thanks for sharing this perspective, Jo. Like you, I was turned off by parts of Quinn during this first section of the book – some of her comments make her seem entitled and downright prejudiced. But I like Aidan’s choice to give us a tricky protagonist – and to link her to two other privileged best friends: Kayla, who, in this section at least, I’d argue represents some of Quinn’s worst qualities, and Avery, who represents some of her better ones.
Hey Kristen—and thanks, as always, for hosting.
I’m really enjoying this book, finding it both breezy and intelligent (and much faster reading than Jung’s The Red Book).
While I agree that identity is the main theme, I am seeing this book as a coming of age story, but also as a coming of age of an artist (a kunstlerroman, as Aiden’s journey inevitably lead to this novel’s very existence).
While Quinn is not the sort of girl I would have much cared for as a young short Jewish guy from rather middle class beginnings—or shall we say I might have “cared for her” the way Portnoy cares for unattainable girls—my view of the Quinn’s I’ve know has shifted a lot over my years from college, to grad school to life beyond all sorts of yesses.
While I had friends who might have grown up next to Quinn, even my WASPy trust fund pals had sought refuge down on the “wrong” side of fourteenth street.
Still, there are so many points of connection for me to plug into here—from my best friend’s summer associate days at Cravath (while I’d be dragging him to artsy clubs). My law and banking friends in their towncars and me in the subway; me working as a “temp” at Merrill Lynch and in the Twin Towers while directing TV and writing and struggling (often quite unseen or dismissed by the entitled kids who’d then run into me and my friends at some hip place and suddenly be the “uncool” ones.
Sometimes I think that a high school mentality seems to take forever to end (and in Hollywood it never ends).
Most of all I find that as I get older, I am able to like and appreciate a much wider array of people (maybe no longer being threatened helps), and so I found myself particularly liking Phelps with he reminding me of certain fair-haired Harvard friends turned artist (and later turned Microsoft exec).
As a shrink I was immediately intrigued by the opening dream, and the notion that all three men are but fragments of her own Animus.
I did not read ahead, so I do not know where it’s ultimately going, but I do like Quinn, I like that kid under the table with her family, I like her pluck, I like her insecurity and her awareness of her own complexly stultifying privilege.
I like her dad, I like their summers in Wisconsin (it made me think of being at camp and wondering who lived in the cool houses on the other side of the bay—the kids who got to be with their families when I did not).
Beyond identity, I also think that the book is a search for meaning and depth in a sea of vapid sheltered materialism; a bit guilty pleasure (it is a fun read) and a bit mirror to the world.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to continuing my read.
Thanks so much for these thoughts, Bruce.
It’s funny: I started reading Life After Yes right after you and I had exchanged some e-mails about meaningful dreams and I was secretly hoping that you would read along with us and offer your two cents on Quinn’s most meaningful one.
I really appreciate what you have to say here about liking more people as you get older. I’ve found I’m much more likely now to give people the benefit of the doubt. Having worked in New York with some of the poorest kids in the city and then in New England with some of the richest in the country, I realized that problems are problems are problems. There are degrees. Yes. Absolutely. But dismissing the angst and anxiety of a privileged child (and I’d say Quinn is still a child here in a lot of ways) – as I admit I sometimes did when I first transitioned from teaching public school to private school – doesn’t go very far to making the world a more harmonious place for anyone. We are all works in progress. And becoming a parent has made me even more of a softie.
Hi Kristen,
I just wanted to note this sense of parallel experience, having worked with the poorest and most neglected LA kids in the system, and consulting at a private school with LA’s very richest and most privileged kids, I too have come to a similar and more widely embracing perspective (and parenting has rendered me a big softie as well).
I wanted to root for Quinn. I wanted her to find her epiphany and I thought Aidan did a great job solidifying Quinn’s “identity” through her other characters, like Fisher, Phelps, and Kayla.
Identity trickled throughout each of these individual stories. But at the core, Quinn was searching for what she wanted to believe in, whether it was her relationships, herself, or the profession she chose. I like that she made mistakes and sometimes didn’t learn from them. In that way, the story was compelling because you wanted to know if she would ever find what she was looking for.
Thanks Kristen for leading this discussion. I enjoyed your review.
“I like that she made mistakes and sometimes didn’t learn from them.” I like that too, Rudri. I think that is one of the many ways in which Aidan makes Quinn human. I know that I, for one, make plenty of mistakes without the Hollywood ending that so often follows in novels and movies. I hope we’ll revisit this topic in later weeks: Does Quinn eventually learn from her mistakes? How does she evolve as the book goes on?
Having been a reader of Aidan’s blog for months, I was immediately captured by this book. I love that we see how flawed Quinn is very early on. She’s a challenging character; very Aidan (as a writer, of course) who writes so well about challenging concepts.
I saw a quick flash of my old self in Quinn when she realizes that a partner had tried to get in touch with her while she was in Paris. Oh, that stress of feeling subpar at your job despite working 60+ hours, I don’t miss that at all.
I wasn’t a fan of Kayla at first. I’m tired of snark (and I can’t concoct a snarky comment about snark) but she sure is an engaging character. Phelps, I thought was very typical in wanting to be atypical. Predictable in wanting to be unpredictable. Sage, he seemed to have the least identity crisis of them all. Victor, I found very likeable right off the bat. He seems just the kind of guy who appears superficial but turns out to be so much more when you dig deeper.
I appreciate how each character appears to be sheltered in his/her own way; knowing only what they know; caring only about what they care about within their bubble. It’s fertile ground for letting life unfold with all the lessons it delivers (whether learned or not). I thought this was a fair and honest depiction of how a lot of us can be. What impresses me is Aidan’s courage to tell it like it is; flaws, the emptiness of a trust fund, wild flirtation despite being engaged. It stings a bit in certain places because it’s all so lifelike; so easy to judge and yet so hard to recognize objectively in ourselves. She does it so well with her signature thoughtful and philosophical writing.
Hi Belinda – Thanks for this thoughtful comment, so much of which resonated with me and with my experience of reading Life After Yes. And I really agree with your remark about Aidan’s bravery and skill in offering us such an unflinching look at her characters’ flaws: “It stings a bit in certain places because it’s all so lifelike; so easy to judge and yet so hard to recognize objectively in ourselves.” I felt that sting myself, as I judged Quinn and the others. But then when I stopped to think about it, I realized that the things I was judging were some of the very things I don’t like about myself.
That Aidan! Such a good observer and commentator!
Kudos, Kristen. Well done. SO well done! Really!
I don’t know if I could have written a review. I’m not the reviewing type. But the reading type? Oh that I can do.
Yes on the identity crisis. I think we all probably have it in one way or another at times in our life, no? The questions that pop up: am I who I want to be? Am I doing what I want to do…to define the person I want to be? And so on and so forth.
My insights on the book stop exactly at Chapter 11, as that’s how far I’ve gotten so far, and I am happy for it. It helps me process the review here and the comments only to a certain level.
I can relate to Quinn on the questions of identity. But on everything else? Not so much. The lifestyle is just so different it’s hard to wrap my head around. And I’m not sure how much self-awareness she has. That said, I’ve only read the first 11 chapters where the author is trying to firmly define storyline.
Other themes thus far? I would have to say you hit the nail on the head with identity, Kristen. What do I want would probably be the second question (after Who do you think you are?) I see. Sometimes, I think, we just have to leap and have faith…and the path finds us. Or we choose something we shouldn’t have, but then we have the opportunity to change it. Because, well, that’s life. Life IS change. But as a lawyer (and I know this well), Quinn analyzes everything to exhaustion. There don’t seem to be any leaps whatsoever. The biggest one was when she let Cameron “play her like a piano” in the cab. And even then, it wasn’t be choice. She just “let” it happen to her.
I’m rooting for Quinn. That she wakes up a bit. That she leaps, maybe. That she starts to feel more comfortable with who she is when she isn’t comparing it to others.
Thanks for hosting, Kristen. And I apologize for the lack of coherence here…early morning brain peppered by the kids’ need for juice! waffles! fight break-up!
:)
Yay, Sarah! So glad to have you and your thoughts here. I really appreciate what you have to say about Quinn’s twin proclivities toward over-analyzing and letting things happen to her. And you’re right: it does seem like she needs to stop thinking so much and drifting so much. She needs to seize that proverbial day and take control of her life without such rigmarole. (Don’t you love that word?) I think this is another way in which her dad’s death unmoors her (or maybe that’s just the excuse she uses? It’s interesting to imagine whether Quinn was equally adrift before his sudden death). I think Aidan uses that imagery of Quinn as a child to make us realize how much hand-holding Quinn feels like she needs.
Oh goodness. I didn’t realize my comment was so long. Sorry!
Apology not accepted. We like long here.
TOTALLY think this is about identity. And insecurity at its finest. :)
I’m so late to the book club party, but just wanted you to know I’m here, gobbling up the variety of perspectives, now that I’m finally catching up!
Oh dear. Here I am, a week behind on the book club. But better late than never!
Identity. Yes, absolutely. And I love how Aidan uses something as straightforward and tangible as a first name to convey this conflict. Prudence or Quinn, who are we seeing right now? Perhaps one is her childhood tendencies, one is her adult aspirations.
I have a confession: I really don’t like Quinn. Yet. I have faith that she’ll figure things out – and Aidan’s storytelling is superb, so I’m fully drawn in to the tale – but right now, she’s getting on my nerves. Maybe I’m being too harsh? It seems she is ungrateful for Sage, too quick to display her insecurities, looking to be pampered but not willing to be all in. But I’ll wait to see how things turn out.
We all have childish tendencies, right? At times we have temper tantrums (in one form or another), look to be taken care of, leave our shoes in the hall, and act irresponsibly. So where is the line between being a child and being an adult? Perhaps it is in recognizing those childish actions and striving to minimize them. I will always have moments when I forget to fight fair and lose my patience, but if I recognize them for what they are and try to nip them in the bud, maybe I’m more adult than child.
Final thought: this whole NYC lifestyle is fascinating and almost shocking. Taking a taxi to work everyday? Wow. But then Aidan weaves in this emotional backstory with Quinn’s father and 9/11… and I can almost relate. Excellent writing to make me, a Minnesota girl, understand this New York life!
Hi Eva! So nice to see you here. And the great thing about this online format is that there’s no such thing as “late.” We’re always open and you’re always on time!
And, psst, I didn’t really like Quinn either in the first part of the book. And I was really worried because I didn’t know what I was going to tell Aidan. :) But, as I read on – and as I bet you’ll experience as you read on – I realized that she’s not all that easy to like because she’s really pretty realistic. Some of her external particulars might be quite foreign to most of us, but her internal monologue, her constant questioning? Pretty close to home. And it’s not always that easy to look in the mirror. So imagine my delight when I continued to read and realized that not only did I come to like Quinn, but I also realized that my not liking her was probably part of Aidan’s devilishly clever, well-written plan.
Phew. :)
I’m late getting my hands on a copy of the book but really excited to have all these amazing people to share a book experience with! So thanks so much for hosting this and for your really excellent review Kristen.
I agree that identity is definitely a theme shaping this novel. What I’ve enjoyed most so far is that although it brings me, as a reader, into a life of high priviledge, it is crafted in such a way that I feel like I can almost imagine what it would be like growing up as such. It is like peeking behind the curtains into a foreign land.
Like Phelps says, “we’re bred for success” and it’s “so easy” — it really is easy when the path is paved for you with great genetics, money and social connections. And yet? Quinn really does seem to typify what many of us likely went through in our 20s. I can relate to many of the mistakes she makes and although I may not *like* her, I love her as a character.
I look at Quinn and think how naive she is … surrounded my people just like her who are also born into priviledge. And then I think “wait a minute” … am I really that different from her? As a middle-class girl, I have to admit that I am surrounded by other middle-class folks. I don’t know anyone of Quinn’s financial priviledge and I don’t really know anyone of extreme financial struggle either. It’s interesting to see how we cluster together and how our world is — in many ways — just a mirror reflection of everyone else’s around us.
Hi Julie – I think you make such an interesting point about our human tendency to cluster with others who are like us. Although Quinn’s lifestyle is one most of us cannot relate to, you’re right: many of us live lives that are our own socio-economic version of hers. It feels easy to criticize Quinn’s relative close-mindedness, but I wonder how different most of us really are.
Of course I am REALLY late joining the club. But I didn’t want to miss my chance to comment. My book arrived late and I’ve been traveling a LOT this month. I’m glad for this book and the complete diversion it is offering as I sink back into some semblance of routine.
I don’t know if I like Quinn. But I certainly like reading about her. And I really like the moments when I hate her. Interestingly, they seem to mirror moments I have hated myself.
I got married young and quite untraditionally. No one even knew I was married for close to 2 years; interesting story there, save that for another time. What I can relate to is the pull to continue to have these other men in Quinn’s/my life.
I think if most women are honest, it is difficult to let go of the idea that there is one man to touch and kiss them for the rest of their life. This, however, is difficult for women to discuss. It is supposed to be man-territory. Men are the ones who are supposed to be the wild ones. Women trap men… not the other way round.
In my marriage, because things were so un-forthright, I grew into devotion and monogamy more gradually. There was no wedding to focus on. I was developing a marriage, not an event for a bride.
For me, Quinn’s dream feels completely natural. Not pretty, (in fact I’m pretty repulsed by all her man-ing) but honest. I think I was only able to address the issues of REAL love in my marriage when I was willing to look at how I was diverted and distracted.
My diversions don’t compare to Quinn’s except that they do. If I wasn’t married, hook, line and sinker, to my husband from the day we both said “I do” does the level of degree of distraction really matter?
This is why reading about her was exciting and engaging, even when I didn’t like what I saw.
And maybe none of this really matters because maybe she won’t stay with Sage anyhow. Does being “engaged” differ radically from being “married”? I guess you can tell that I view them both as lifetime promises. Having never been engaged, maybe they’re quite different.
You bring up such a rich and interesting point here, Rebecca, about our assumptions about what women want and why we assume that women gravitate more naturally toward monogamy. Quinn may represent a challenge to those assumptions, but I also wonder the extent to which her behavior during the early chapters of the book represents fear not just of monogamy, but of committing to any one path in life, closing doors instead of opening them. I can relate to the way she behaves, not wanting to be tied down (and I don’t mean romantically; I mean wanting a life in which everything continues to seem possible).
Yes, I agree. Her desire to “slut” around is the fear of diving deep into ONE path.
I think this is every young person’s fear. At least it was mine profoundly and why I continued to flirt so seriously after my marriage.
I was afraid of diving deeply into the intimacy that marriage – one love – offered.
Thankfully, maturity, and a few hard knocks where I was forced to rely on that true love melts those fears and replaces them with undying devotion.
My sister always says fidelity cannot be demanded, but it is regularly inspired. This has been my experience. And a delightful one.
Fidelity to ideas, a husband, a garden…there are all kinds of single paths we choose that require us to say no to others we might walk. It is my sincere hope that Quinn will allow herself to be where she is and drink fully of the life she is living instead of constantly trying to divert herself with a bottle.
There might be pain. But there certainly will be no resounding joy without it.
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