Reviews for The atlas of love
Library Journal
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Janey, Jill, and Katie meet in grad school in Seattle and, despite their different personalities, become fast friends. Jill is harsh and straight to the point; Janey, sweet and dependable; and Katie, a devout Mormon on the lookout for her perfect husband. Jill starts dating a great guy, until she gets pregnant and Daniel can't handle her decision to have the baby. Janey has a solution to Jill's dilemma: all three women will move in together and jointly raise the child, named Atlas. This works beautifully for a while as the friends bond with adorable Atlas. But of course, things take a wrong turn. Jill starts abusing her friends' dedication, and when Daniel steps back into the picture, quite an emotional mess ensues. How far can female friendship be pushed? What are the limitations to parenting, and when is a baby yours? Told from Janey's point of view, the narrative is sprinkled with literary techniques that color each chapter beautifully. Verdict Frankel's debut is a wonderful literary treat that offers a fresh twist on the modern family, one that relies on the bonds of women.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Frankel explores the boundaries of family in her first novel, about three young women in Seattle who share the experience of motherhood when one becomes pregnant.Narrator Janey, a nice Jewish girl from Canada, meets vegetarian Jill and devoutly Mormon Katie while they are all grad students in English lit. When Jill becomes pregnant, she realizes she wants to keep the baby, but her much younger boyfriend Dan, who is only now about to graduate from college, balks. So Janey and Katie happily agree to help Jill raise the baby, and all move in together. Soon baby Atlas arrives. The girls set up a complicated schedule of childcare, teaching and preparing for their dissertations. Janey's solipsistic account of their travails may not sound very difficult or dramatic to anyone who has actually been a mother and/or held a job. Janey cooks, Jill cleans, Katie shops. Their happily coupled gay friends Jason and Lucas become adjunct members of the extended familyKatie loves them even if her religion doesn'talong with Jill's loving single mother Diane and Janey's even more loving parents and grandmother. Katie has a couple of dates with a charming history grad student named Ethan, but he won't convert to Mormonism. Not to worry. Soon she meets 21-year-old Mormon Peter (no surprise that these remarkably innocent girls like younger men) and becomes engaged within a week, while the growing friendship between Janey and Ethan vibrates with definite romantic tensionalthough sex in this novel is of the kissy/cuddly variety and Janey has no personality. Then Dan reappears in Jill's life and things fall apart. Atlas ends up in the emergency room. Janey and Jill have a major falling out, and Jill moves with Atlas to Dan's. Has the shared mothering experiment failed? The death of Janey's grandmother, while sad, unites friends and lovers. After all, everyone's intentions are good.Despite Janey's self-important mini-lectures tying her story to narrative theory, Frankel offers no more than a shallow, feel-good weepy.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
First-novelist Frankel mashes together a number of themes familiar to readers of women's fiction though not quite in the way they're combined here sprinkling the whole with liberal doses of low-key humor. Canadian Janey, Mormon Katie, and vegetarian Jill all become good friends while attending graduate school in Seattle. Although they share a love of literature they're English-lit students they are quite different in their approaches to life and love. Then Jill becomes pregnant by her much younger boyfriend, who decides he cannot handle the burdens of parenthood. Both Janey and Katie immediately volunteer to move in with her and help her raise her child. Janey, especially, falls in love with the baby they name Atlas, and they begin the herculean task of juggling their schedules between teaching, studying, and child care. A medical emergency involving Atlas, though, soon tests their idealistic arrangement in unforeseen ways. Frankel proves insightful on the topic of friendship, incorporates a foodie's love of cooking, and overly idealizes a few of the characters; but this is a feel-good novel, after all, and ultimately a celebration of modern family life and the myriad forms it can take.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
