About:
In the summer of 1955, nine-year-old Amanda Gerber tearfully leaves her best friend, Francine, and their adventurous life on her block in Brooklyn’s Flatbush. She joins her cantankerous family on the long, hot drive to her grandmother’s home in the Catskill Mountains among the city’s Jews who flock to countless hotels and bungalow colonies in the heyday of the Borscht Belt. In the idyllic mountains, Amanda becomes ensconced in the tumult of her extended family and their friends, often seeking solace in the woods with her beloved cousin Laura.
Through the following summers, interspersed with the heightened drama of her emotionally charged city life, Amanda faces severe tests to her survival mechanisms, including the pain of loss, abuse, and betrayal, while family secrets threaten to disrupt her life even further. A novel-in-stories, Floating in the Neversink is a testament to the power of survival, friendship, and love.
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Floating in the Neversink by Andrea Simon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I was not financially compensated, and all opinions are 100 percent mine. My rating is a 3.75 for this book.
First of all, this book is what I would consider a young adult coming-of-age book, but it does not mean it is completely appropriate for all young adults and teenagers. There are some sexual situations and other difficulties that come up, and there is also some (but not too much) profanity. It is nothing that would shock most teenagers, but I always want to let readers know the potentially problematic and/or offensive areas of any book before they read.
This book has some truly amazing portions of it that definitely could spark conversations between teens and the adults in their lives. Even though the book is a throwback to a different time period and has that retro/nostalgic feel, it is wise to remember that children often dealt with major issues back then. The difference is that there were taboo topics that were not discussed in most families, and as a young girl, the expectation was that any man who forced her to perform sexual favors–no matter the age–was culpable for actions. Very few seemed to understand and publicly acknowledge that “dirty old men” who were considered friends of the family could easily prey on the youngsters–both boys and girls–and never get caught. I can only hope that we have evolved enough as a society to ensure that the vast majority of young people do not have to experience this sort of behavior. Nevertheless, this is one of the chapters that I felt could spawn some authentic conversations between young people and their parents if this subject has never been broached in the household.
I was not overly taken with the manner in which the book was written, but that is more of a personal preference on my part. No doubt the author knows how to weave a tale that places the reader smack dab in the middle of the action, but sometimes I felt just a little lost and disinterested in some of the characters. Amanda’s character was well-developed and detailed her stories in her own unique style, but sometimes, the other characters felt more two-dimensional. Perhaps I am merely not the intended audience for this book. I appreciated the throwbacks in the book and the way in which things were not politically correct. But I was not overly invested in several of the characters.
While the book itself was not amongst my top favorites, the topics that were covered and even the first-person narrative were all intriguing. It is an easy-to-read book that may very well find its way onto the shelves of those looking for coming-of-age stories and a look at a simpler time (with complications beneath the radar). The author definitely knows and understands the area and time period that is covered within this book, and for that, I definitely applaud her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrea Simon is a writer and photographer based in New York City. She has worked as an editor, writer, and manager on diverse projects, and was the co-owner of an editorial/production company that specialized in health-related educational materials. For the past several years, she has devoted her efforts to fiction and literary nonfiction, including her published memoir/history, Bashert: A Granddaughter’s Holocaust Quest, now in a paperback edition; her award-winning historical novel, Esfir Is Alive; and her new novel-in-stories, Floating in the Neversink. Andrea has published numerous stories and essays and has received prestigious literary honors, including the winner of the Ernest Hemingway First Novel Contest, two Dortort Creative Writing Awards, the Stark Short Fiction Prize, the Short Story Society Award, and the Authors in the Park Short Story Writing Contest. Esfir Is Alive was a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist and a 2017 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards winner.
Photographing her impressions for many decades, Andrea specialized in archival black-and-white printing, and has moved onto digital images. Her photographs have been published in numerous vehicles and displayed at international galleries.
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York where she has taught introductory writing and creative writing. A member of the Story Circle Network (SCN), Andrea has taught an online course on “How to Write About Your Family – and Still Talk to Them Afterwards” and conducted a SCN conference workshop on writing about your mother. She has presented her work at book clubs, schools, synagogues, the 92nd Street Y, genealogy conventions, and reading series. A longtime member of a writing group, Andrea has also mentored many writers.
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