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    The Lauras: A Novel
    The Lauras: A Novel
    The Lauras: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Lauras: A Novel

    Written by Sara Taylor

    Narrated by Rudy Sanda

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From the exceptionally gifted, Baileys Prize-nominated author Sara Taylor comes a dazzling new novel about youth, identity, and family secrets.

    After a fight with Alex's father, Ma pulls Alex out of bed and onto a pilgrimage of self-discovery through her own enthralling past. Guided by a memory map of places and people from Ma's life before motherhood, the pair travels from Virginia to California, each new destination and character revealing secrets, stories, and unfinished business. As Alex's coming-of-age narrative unfolds across the continent, we meet a cast of riveting and heartwarming characters including brilliant Annie, who seeks the help of Ma and Alex to escape the patriarchal cult in which she was raised, and the tragic young Marisol, whose dreams of becoming a mother end in heartbreak.

    Slowly, Alex begins to realizes that the road trip is not a string of arbitrary stops, but a journey whose destination is perhaps Ma's biggest secret of all. Told from the perspective of Alex, a teenager who equates gender identification with unwillingly choosing a side in a war, and written with a stunningly assured lyricism, The Lauras is a fearless study of identity, set against the gorgeously rendered landscape of North America.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9781681686080
    The Lauras: A Novel

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    Reviews for The Lauras

    3.5/5

    106 ratings37 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is one of those books that will leave you thinking about it for several days. We were on a road trip when I finished this book and maybe that gave me more understanding of what was driving these people. There is a wonderlust about being on the road that this book did a fairly good job of explaining.Not knowing if Alex was a boy or girl was a story within the the story which i never did find out but in the end it didn't make any difference to the path Alex chose. To have grown up as the mother did and to go back and try to set a different outcome of these events was a fantastic. The ftuth i took away was that truth is my perception of events and how I remember them. There are some of the most honest statement within this novel that have me rereading thiem several time and even reading them to my wife. I really enjoyed this book.
    • 2/5
      The characters were fairly interesting, even if you never know the gender of Alex. But, I really didn't get what the author was striving to tell me in the story. The mother grabs Alex and takes off on a cross country trip to visit all the "Lauras" she had known growing up. I really wanted to like the book, but in the end, I saw no point.
    • 4/5
      This is an odd story yet it grew on me. Basically, a mother leaves her husband with her young, teenage, androgynous child in tow and embarks on a road trip across America into Canada. The teen, Alex, who seems older than her years, didn't expect she would not return home again for a few years. The Mom was reconciling her past and Alex, the narrator, was coming of age. And it questions who are we really and where is home anyway. Interesting.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this audio-book more than I did. To begin with, I assumed Alex was a young boy, whose mother woke him one night, packed him up in the car, and left home to take him on a road trip to unknown destinations. After reading other reviews, I realize Alex was never identified as male or female, which is important, considering some of the things that happened to him/her along the way. It was very mysterious as to just why his mother left his father or where she was going. They did travel to a few specific places to visit people from the mother's past, but I didn't understand the importance of the visits. Anyway, I wouldn't particularly recommend the book to a friend.
    • 3/5
      When I began reading this novel, I was very intrigued as to see where this story would go. A 13-year-old child is woken up from bed and whisked away on a road trip. That is one heck of an intro! I really liked the author's writing style, as it had a good flow and gave a great description of the setting. The main character in the story, Alex, was also intriguing in that Alex ascribes to no gender. Never in the story is it revealed whether Alex is male or female - and this intrigued me both because of the fact that this is a unique character and because the author so successfully hid the gender identity throughout the story. I liked the way little bits of Ma's life were revealed as the story progressed, and how they reflected the trials and random events that can occur in life as well as the way these experiences shape you. However, by the time I got to the end of the story, I felt a bit disappointed and confused as to what the point of the whole story was. Granted, it is a coming-of-age story, one that shows how life leaves one with many memories that can be good and bad.... but that's about it. After that whole road trip, I kind of expected a bit more. So while there were definitely some positive things about this novel, the overall plot seemed to have no real purpose and left me disappointed. I didn't love this novel but I didn't hate it either.

      I received this novel as an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this audiobook. The premise is an interesting one. Teenage Alex and Alex's mom meander around the country as Alex goes through the process of adolescence, and mom exorcises the ghosts of her own adolescence and young adulthood. But it just didn't ring true to me. I couldn't find a character I could genuinely care about.
    • 2/5
      In The Lauras, Alex takes a cross-country trip with his mother after she walks out on his dad. What at first seems to be a random itinerary turns out to be his mother's attempt to revisit friends and places from her tumultuous and mostly unhappy childhood. Alex is trying to discover who he is as he is learning more and more about who his mother is. It is a bit unsatisfying that Alex never seems to come to any conclusion about his own identity. Learning about his mother's spotty past does not really bring them closer together. It seemed to be a bit anticlimactic to me.
    • 3/5
      I'm not sure where to start with this one. I enjoyed the book (3 1/2 stars), but it wasn't an easy read. There is so much dysfunction going on here. It becomes depressing at times. It is the story of a young non-gender teen who is taken on a long and random road trip by the mom, herself a product of multiple foster homes and clueless, selfish parents. The mother is leaving her husband and home with no intentions of returning. Their travel takes them to numerous states and connections with several people from the mother's previous life. There isn't really a clear purpose for relating this story, but the author does a great job of defining these troubled characters for the reader. My thought is that readers will have mixed feelings about this book. It reads quite well, particularly in some places. It also has little direction and readers might have difficulty caring enough about these characters to finish reading. There is no real conclusion to the book either. I did see some growth in the two characters(mother and child), but there was little real emotional appeal and nothing particularly settling by the end of the story. I think some people will find this a good read without the need for exciting action or a tidily wrapped-up ending. If you are intrigued by troubled and struggling characters, you might want to pick this one up. It is likely not for the casual reader or fans of action driven prose, but rather much more a character study of flawed and damaged people. I thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.
    • 3/5
      The Lauras: A Novel written by Sara Taylor is her second book, her first being The Shore which was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of The Year Award. Her short author bio states that she is a product of the homeschooling movement and the experiences she gained from being homeschooled likely influenced her writing of The Lauras. The Lauras tells the story of Alex, an androgynous teen’s coming of age as he travels with his mother across the United States reliving her past as she confronts the people and places that shaped her. The book was adequately written and the experiences Alex had were believable. But the story line did not resonate with me and the writing was not inspirational. I prefer setting down the book at the end of a read and sighing say “Wish there was more.”
    • 2/5
      I felt this book tried to be too many things. In doing so, none of them were shaped into anything and, in the end, this book was highly unsatisfying.
    • 1/5
      This book was completely a guidebook in BAD parenting. My first thought was wow- bipolar much and dragging your kid through it. Definitely not a fun read as I felt so sorry for this kid and his having to cope with mom's dysfunction as well as figure out who he is and wants to be.
    • 4/5
      This book is very difficult for me to review. There is one scene that I hated to listening to but there are a lot of scenes that I felt that I learned from and others that seemed poetic.The story is mostly reflections of person of a road trip taken with his mother 30 years ago. I use the male pronouns because it seemed to fit the story the best. Alex did not have a strong gender identity. He says in the story that he had not decided on being male or female. He was attracted to being a female because of bullying that he had in school. He relates some of the horrible bullying incidents in the story. In my childhood I was bullied by a girl my age. Now I appreciate that all she did was hit me and call me names. What Alex experienced was bullying carried to the extreme. I felt so bad for him.That is just one part of the story and I am omitting the details. Alex is grabbed out of his bed by his mother and she takes him on a long road trip, sometimes with stops to live at different places. She does not tell him why they are leaving his dad and the house, if they are ever coming back or even where they are going. We learn about her terrible past and about her friendships with different women named Laura and and others with different names. Her heart ache, her anger, her fierce independence. You also feel those emotions from Alex. This is a very unusual coming of age story, the ending does not seem like an ending at all. So I would say, read or listen to this story but be aware that this is going to be gritty and at times not what you want know about. I received an a finished audio as a win from LibraryThing from the publishers in exchange for a fair book review. My thoughts and feelings in this review are my own.
    • 2/5
      There were a few problems with continuity and flow in this book, which wouldn't be as much of a problem if it didn't set out to be an odyssey/journey. I liked individual vignettes but the story was a little disconnected taken as a whole.
    • 4/5
      The Lauras was a very interesting, informative, emotional and entertaining read that I sped right through. I was mesmerized by this tale of a mother with an agenda and an agender (I had never heard of this before which makes this book, informative) teenage daughter. I was mesmerized by this book from the very beginning. The mother's agenda, unknown to anyone else, was quite quirky and interesting. She had quite a few things on her list that took her all over the country.Her teenage daughter, Alex, amazed me with her maturity at such a young age and her ability to see her real "self" at such a young age astounded me.The book was very emotional and said a lot about the characters in a very minimal amount of words. As I said, I was into this book from the very beginning and sped through enjoying the story immensely.Thanks to Crown Publishing and Net Galley for providing me with an entertaining and free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
    • 4/5
      I received an ARC of this book from First to Read.Alex looks back on life on the road as a young teen 30 years prior. I assumed Alex was female, but realized well into the book that the gender is purposely unclear. Even without this twist, the story is unusual.Alex's Ma wakes her (I'll use female pronouns for convenience) in the wee hours after one family fight too many, packs her and a few possessions into the car, and flees their Virginia home for points south. On the road, Ma reveals stories of her own turbulent past, while revisiting several sites to take care of unfinished business. When money runs low, they settle for longer periods, living in seedy apartments or motels while Ma waitresses/bartends and Alex attends school.This continues for over 2 years. One common thread is the Lauras, women who may or may not have been named Laura, who were important in Ma's life. After adventures all over the country (some decidedly unpleasant and others more fun), they head for California (for some key unfinished business) and eventually across the border to settle in Canada. An epilogue fills us in on what happened after that, but the story felt a bit incomplete.
    • 3/5
      This is a story about a mother wanting to tie up loose ends in her past by visiting various places that had helped form her personality when she was younger. She brings along her 13 year old child who identifies as gender neutral and who recounts the mother's actions through the eyes of an adolescent who doesn't really understand the choices the mother has made. I found this story to be uneven both in the plot structure and the writing. Some of the situations they experienced were quite interesting but overall the characters did not leave much of an impression and the ending seemed forced as we finally meet the father who has been left behind.
    • 3/5
      I received this as part of the Early Reviewer program. I felt like I couldn't really get to know the characters, but that the author was doing this on purpose. It's one of those "you can't really know someone" type of messages. I guess most people picked up that Alex doesn't identify with a gender right away, but in my mind I was imagining Alex to be a girl. It wasn't until page 199 that I realized this was a main point of the book.I thought the strongest part of the novel was when Alex's mother was explaining how people can have such an impact during childhood, in her case it was all the Lauras she met growing up. As someone who spent years bounced around the foster system she didn't have any stable relationships, but would often meet a girl named Laura. She allowed each one to try to fill the hole that she had from her first friend named Laura until her childhood became defined by her relationships with Lauras.
    • 4/5
      The Lauras is energetic and infectious. Taylor has written a moving and original story, a coming-of-age that is defined by the narrator's relationship with their mother. Alex is a good character but at times felt a little two-dimensional, that being agender was their only character trait. (The explanations of being agender, while I'm sure are necessary for many readers, felt a bit forced as if they were added in edits--they didn't quite flow with the rest of the writing.) The dialogue was a bit stilted at times but as this was an advance copy it's possible that it's been edited! I really loved the flashbacks into the mother's story--and the very well-done subtle indicators that Alex is understandably not always a reliable narrator. The Lauras is a great little novel.
    • 4/5
      The Lauras by Sara Taylor is about home and homelessness. The story takes place over two years when a mother and daughter drive up and down and across the USA (and eventually to Canada), visiting the mother's past. The past comes in the shape of stories of immigration, orphanage, running away, foster care, friendships and animosities, and eventually link to the present in the shape of long lost promises waiting to be fulfilled, obligations, favors, and the search for two people in particular. The Lauras is also a coming of age story. The gender-ambivalent Alex discovers the sexual urges and fantasies of teenage-hood, learns to break free and disobey in more significant ways, makes mistakes and pays for them, and eventually comes to understand "Ma" better than before. Through their search for the past, through their restless homelessness, Alex forges an understanding of what home means for each person, and how radically different each person's definition can be.Recommended for those who like greasy diner food, gender-bending teenagers, swimming, and long showers.Thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange of my honest review. I enjoyed The Lauras!
    • 4/5
      I did not hate this novel. Taylor can certainly write an engaging story and interesting characters as originally evidenced in her debut, [The Shore] (which I loved). But there is something very oblique about this book, a purposeful distance the author keeps between the reader and her characters. We never really get to know them, and while I recognize her message about how we never really do or can know anyone, her method of driving it home prevented me from ever warming up to the novel. The writing was compelling but the story itself never completely caught me up and ultimately left me cold. 3.5 stars(Read for Early Reviewers)
    • 4/5
      Alex is thirteen years old. One night, Alex's mother wakes the child up, packs up their belongings and they hit the road, leaving her unsuspecting husband behind. They set off on a journey, that the mother has mapped out, revisiting her troubled past, which includes seeking out important friends, that had influenced her young adulthood. She calls all these friends, Lauras. On the drive, the mother slowly begins to tell Alex stories, revealing the events that had shaped her early life.The other theme, in the novel, is Alex struggling with sexual identity. It never is clear if the kid is a boy or girl.I loved Taylor's debut novel, The Shore and of course, I really wanted to love this one too, but it really never took off for me. She is a fine writer and there is plenty of lovely prose here, I just wish the overall story was more satisfying.Here is a description of Alex's parents: “They were like each other and not like each other, wanderers in different ways, speakers of different languages, and though they both felt the desire to share their hidden places, they could not share them with each other.”
    • 3/5
      I know I echo other reviewers, here and elsewhere, when I say I really wanted to like this story more than I did. Sara Taylor's prose can be beautiful, haunting, searing.....her storyline in this case, not so much. This was a case of when it is good, it is very, very good, otherwise it will put you to sleep (or make you want to throw the book at the nearest wall). I made it to the end, with far too many questions left unanswered. And I have to say Ma is one walking literature cliche. I give this three stars only because I respect the author's writing talent. Story-telling talent is a totally different ballgame.
    • 4/5
      The main character, Alex, grows up (13-16) on the road with her mother in this coming of age story. Alex's non-gender/all-gender identity is a good metaphor for her life in general; she feels she fits in nowhere and yet can blend in or go anywhere. Alex travels the countryside visiting places from her mother's past and learning more about her mother in the process. While the characters are mostly likeable (although flawed), I still shake my head in wonderment at the parenting- mainly allowing one's teenage daughter to head off to parts unknown.
    • 4/5
      "It's bothered me for as long as I can remember, the way the human compulsion to classify stands at odds with my feeling of falling outside the available categories. When I was a child at home it mattered less: my father was Man, my mother was Woman, I was myself. But when I went out into the world, or even to my grandparents' house, everyone seemed determined to put me into a box that I had no business being in, expected to think and act and want in ways that were consistent with a label with which I could not identify." This adventure starts when gender-nonspecific 13-year-old Alex is awakened by her/his mom, trundled into the car, and told that they are leaving. As the miles roll along, mom tells stories of growing up, moving from foster home to foster home, making her way pretty much on her own. Thus enter the Lauras, a series of girls and women who meant much to mom as she made her way to adulthood. This road trip takes Alex and Alex's mom to various places of interest in mom's youth: through the south to Florida, then to Texas, Las Vegas, eventually to California and British Columbia. Along the way, Alex goes through the teenage coming of age, learning from mom's stories and discovering her/his own yearnings. One of the most compelling stories within this story is that of Annie, the daughter of an old friend whom they visit in Texas. Taylor's exploration of categories, societal expectations and the internal experience of falling outside those, is rich and respectful. They are also subtly applied, leaving the reader to consider questions of gender, gender roles, and the notion of family at the reader's own pace. This novel started slowly and it took a while for Alex and her/his mom to develop for me. However, it gained momentum around the halfway point and flourished into a satisfying read. It never quite lived up to the promise of Sara Taylor's debut novel, The Shore, but it's a solid contribution and I will continue to look forward to Taylor's future works.I received an uncorrected proof copy for review from LibrayThing's Early Reviewer program.
    • 4/5
      Road trip books fascinate me for the travel aspect, but The Lauras is so much more. Questions abound as you read and you want to continue reading to find out the answers about Laura and the thirteen year old Alex who is taken on Ma's road trip into her past. Themes of gender identity, sexual awakening and homelessness are written respectfully. Repeatedly I would reread sentences because the imagery used would stun me and I'd be amazed at the word choices to create such a vivid invoking of smell or sight. I received an uncorrected proof copy for review from LibrayThing's Early Reviewer program.
    • 2/5
      The characters were fairly interesting, even if you never know the gender of Alex. But, I really didn't get what the author was striving to tell me in the story. The mother grabs Alex and takes off on a cross country trip to visit all the "Lauras" she had known growing up. I really wanted to like the book, but in the end, I saw no point.
    • 4/5
      I love travel books, and that's what drew me to this book. Along with everybody else sure many people who reviewed it I found that it wasn't really a travel book. It was a mother search for identity. There were parts that I really enjoyed, but I found it disjointed, and I found 'not knowing the sex of the narrator -leaving it for me to guess, was troubling. After writing the review I went back and read others reviews, and found that I was not alone in my criticism. I however did enjoy the book for the best part. Thank you for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      I got this book as an early review copy from Library Things Early Reviewer program. I thought I would love it, but I didn't for some reason. The premise is all the things I love. Mom and kid take off in the night on a road trip and mom reveals in bits, through the path of the road trip and the people they meet, the story of her life. BUT -- it bothered me that the kid missed the dad so much and the mom didn't seem to care or worry about how that impacts a teen to just be ripped from their other parent like that? No apparent sympathy for that at all? And we never get any part of the story of why the dad deserved this kind of treatment. And, by the way, I keep saying "kid" and "teen" because at the beginning I assumed it was a girl teenager -- but somewhere in the book you realize that the teen is somewhat androgynous - keeps saying that it doesn't "have" a gender? And the mom agrees. I wanted to know more about that. But we never really get to know. It's name, of course, is Alex, which could be a girl or a boy. And the author, I guess, doesn't feel we deserve to really ever know, because the book ends without us knowing if the narrator is a girl or a boy -- we never get to know. I understand that gender issues are all the rage now, and I'm sympathetic to them, I'm not opposed. But I want to know MORE. But no. It was just unsatisfying for me all around. I liked the writing and the story -- I just wanted to know more than I got to know. I ended up knowing a little bit about a lot of things that I wanted to know a lot more about. So maybe less storylines, and more depth.
    • 3/5
      The book begins with a road trip for a mother and her 13 yr. old son Alex. Not so much a road trip but just a walk-out-the-door leave after a argument with her husband. The boy has no say ....just get in the car. The story never really goes anywhere except a trip down memory lane for the mother and all the things she had been wanting to do for some time. I thought the book was sad, especially at the end for the boy. The least she could have done was let him get through the teen years with a father and then make his own decisions.
    • 5/5
      I’ll be honest, I applied for this NetGalley early review copy because my name is Laura and I thought it would be funny to get a book called “The Lauras.” Sometimes I have a really goofy definition of self. I definitely did not factor in that I would enjoy this book so much. Like woah, I would even go so far as to say it’s one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, out of the 16 I’ve read so far. This is the third advanced reader copy I’ve received and the only one I’ve even rated above 3 stars, so this review is definitely not biased. I am honestly now interested in reading Taylor’s debut copy, because I enjoyed it so much.This book is through Alex’s perspective, as s/he travels with their mother across the United States on a road trip of self-discovery and personal significance. In the beginning, I think Alex is around 13, and by the end they are maybe 16? It’s a first person narrative, showing you Alex’s ruminations on their traveling experiences and growing up. Alex gets to know their parent like few kids do, some good, and some bad. The story really resonated with me in the sense that I have a wandering spirit that I’ve never really fully realized. I get restless when I’m in a place for too long, but instead of taking epic trips of self-discovery, I take a weekend vacation to somewhere new. I have a job that keeps its claws firmly lodged in me, and the best I can do is vacationing here and there, and reading as much as I possibly can to escape.I’m not one of those people who despises first person narratives, so it didn’t really bother me. But I did enjoy reading through Alex’s voice because they were so insightful and curious. Granted, the voice is pretty much the same from adolescence to young adulthood, but it’s a highly readable voice that experiences sexual curiosity, petulance of youth, and eventually a more concrete understanding of self and their parents. THE VERDICT:If I had to sum up the plot of this book, I would say that it’s largely a book of discovery: of self, of who your parent really is and was, and, ultimately, of the world around you. It was beautiful, and I found myself sitting in bed for hours at a time to read it. I would say that those who would enjoy this book are people with a wandering spirit, as well as those who are into a book of teenage self-discovery through the eyes of an atypical individual. It’s more of a journey than one with a true typical plotline full of excitement and heroics; you are privy to Alex’s ruminations and remembering of this time.