Chick Lit. Unquestionably. Does that automatically make it bad? No, I don't think so. I guess the main negative aspect was the predictability of the outcome and the lack of character depths. However, it was quite a pleasant read, and I guess there was an element of reality, at least in terms of my (unreal?) life. That is, the idea that a person might stupidly allow themselves to be drawn into a relationship which anyone could see wasn't going to work, just because the person wants to feel needed. I needed a fairly lightweight book after my previous one (The Poisonwood Bible), and this performed that role admirably. I liked Lipman's style (this was my first taste of Elinor Lipman) enough to make me start another of hers - "My Latest Grievance". I'll see how that compares before I start making judgments about the author. After all, she's a favorite author of one of my favorite readers! ( )

Can an upper-middle-class doctor find love with a shady, fast-talking fudge salesman?

Quirky characters and sharp wit highlight Elinor Lipman's The Pursuit of Alice Thrift.

Alice Thrift, a surgical intern at a Boston hospital, is high of IQ but low in social graces. She doesn't mean to be acerbic, clinical, or blunt. Into Alice's workaholic and wallflower life comes Ray Russo, a slick traveling fudge salesman in search of a nose job and well-heeled companionship, but not necessarily in that order. Is he a con man or a sincere suitor? Good guy or bad?

I enjoyed Alice and am looking for more books by Lipman. If you're tired of the same old same old, I suggest that you give Alice a try. ( )

I wanted to shake some of the characters, but mostly I didn't really care. The relationships between Alice and her boyfriend/husband, Alice and her mother, etc. were confusing and lacked focus. I did like the way the book ended but I'm not sure it flowed with the previous story. ( )

I've been reading through all of Elinor Lipman's novels. This one was a bit odd. The characters, the story, everything...just odd. While I'm sure I didn't like it as much as most of her previous books, I'm also not quite sure how much I did like it.

I wanted to see how it ended. And, the end was indeed satisfying. I think the stiltedness of the main character just sort of took over the whole book. I left me feeling uncomfortable and disconcerted. ( )

"The Inn at Lake Devine" remains one of my favorite books, and "Pursuit" illustrates why: Lipman can really write female characters, and female characters *I can relate to*, which is incredibly, incredibly rare. She’s got a great protagonist in Alice—smart, poor social skills, makes dumb, self-destructive mistakes of the *exact* kind I can (and do) see myself making. In fact, parts of this book were kind of hard to read, they hit so close to home. But in the end, I loved Alice, and I love that somewhere out there in the world of fiction, she exists.

However: why end the book just when it’s starting to get interesting? We’re told from the beginning that Ray, the man pursuing Alice, is bad news, and every single thing he does says—no, screams in bright, bold, neon letters—RAY IS BAD NEWS, and yet the book ends…with the revelation that Ray is bad news? No! I want more, much more, of how Alice moves on with her life. Lipman gives us wonderful, tantalizing hints of how she’s grown and changed, but I wanted to see them in action, dammit!

Love the heroine for her depth, quirkiness, and oddball nature. She’s so hopeless, and yet you can sense that people do respond to her at some level so she is never truly hopeless. The humor is hilarious but also complex. ( )

Elinor Lipman's novels either delight me or leave me cold. This one was a little different -- it almost delighted me, but I needed a sweater while I read it. Alice is a hard kind of character to write. She's incapable of accessing her own feelings or reaching out to others, something that Lipman conveys so successfully that the reader feels just as alienated from the main character as she does from her life. All in all this novel glides along on the surface, and it never really digs down to where the interesting stuff might be. What's really frustrating is that Lipman actually gets Alice to the point where things are going to happen, and then she ends the book. I will grant that there are some quirky characters, very memorable --but even they float above the narrative.