Aquamarine

First of all, I love reading about people's lives, the vast assortment of things that can happen to us. In this book, I had it times three. We are constantly making decisions in our lives and this book shows us how the main character's life was affected by three different decisions. To me, it was delicious!I also adored Carol Anshaw's "sense of place." At turns I was in small town Missouri, New York City, and run-down Florida (I've lived there and it hit home to me).I plow through books and not all of them grab me. This one did. Let me also say that, having spent a lifetime reading many, many books, I know excellent writing when I see (read) it. Carol Anshaw is an excellent writer!

Carol Anshaw's Aquamarine is inventive without ever being flashy and moving with out ever sentimentalizing. The same woman, imagined in different permutations--divorced mom, stay at home mom, lesbian professional, comes to life in a literary triptych unlike anything I've read. The author's fascinating premise is that there isn't one "unique" self inside us, struggling to be realized, but many possibilities that can float to the surface depending upon choices that at the time they are made which don't seem life determining.In each of the stories the main character makes a seemingly innocuous choice--whether to stay rural or go urban; marry out of high school or go to university--that completely and radically not only changes her but set her on that "inevitable" course. For all of our "decision making" "career moves" et al we are amazingly malleable and control is pretty much illusion.Best of all, none of the lives she becomes are judged better or worse. They are just different--variant and perhaps opposite, and yet all are familiar and all are worthy. Whatever your outlook on life, you almost certainly haven't looked at it through this lens.

Anshaw's telling of three different paths a single life can take is very refreshing. I liked how the cast of characters remained the same in each scenario, but their relationships with each other varied.Most readers will probably find this book refreshing as Anshaw is a wonderful story-teller and the ending is quite unique.

Interesting characters with sort of a different way of telling their (specifically her) story. It's the old, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. . ." but in this case it was three roads.

Don't buy this book. It's poorly written, not very believable, and really not interesting. I don't recommend it to anyone.

Jesse Austin comes in second at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to Aussie Marty Finch (in the 100 Freestyle I think).Then we get three versions of what her life could be after that turning point. In the first she's married to a guy and still living in her hometown in Missouri, but unhappy too. In the second she's not married, but dating a woman and is a Professor of Literature in New York, and still she's unhappy at times, although it's in a different way than in the first version. And finally in the third version she's sort of in between the first two. Not married or dating and living in Florida.It's one of the ideas that has always interested me. The question of what if. The idea that somewhere out in the multi-verse there's a world where I turned right instead of left, said yes instead of no. And although Anshaw only hints at the events that changed Jesse's life in each of the stories, they're definitely there.Another t hing that I found interesting was within the stories all the stuff that was the same and what was different. Some of the same people appeared in all three stories or two of them and it was fun to see how Jesse's interaction with them changed in each story, not to mention how they changed too. And finally there was the Soap MD/RN which was in all three and was used in a very, very cool way throughout the story.The only part that I'm not sure I totally understood was the very end of the novel, the very last (and short) final chapter. I won't spoil it, but to me it just didn't seem to fit into the rest of the story. It seemed tacked on in a weird way.Overall it was a solid book and worth all the recommendations I got to read it (online and offline).

This book borders on a cross between science fiction and practical fiction. It’s about three different time continuum‘s and the possibilities of one person‘s life. I found this book to be captivating and mesmerizing. It’s a timeless story which inspires the reader to stop and think about the ways in which our lives can be so very different because of the choices we make. One decision can literally change everything. I invite you to crack open this book and take three different journeys while pondering the “what ifs” in life. For me, this book did not fall flat. I enjoyed it immensely.

This book was a nice vacation read. It's hard to find gay fiction that one can really see themselves in that is also well written. Aquamarine had some themes that hit close to home but in terms of literary merit it fell short at times. Jesse is a lesbian "everyman" of sorts, she experiences what we have all been through, and it's comforting to see that in print. It was a quick and enjoyable read, but definitely not one of the great works of fiction!