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| The Private Lives of Pippa Lee | 
 enlarge | Author: Rebecca Miller
Publisher: Canongate Books
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (36) Collectible (1) from £0.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 1292
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.4
ISBN: 1847672493
EAN: 9781847672490
ASIN: 1847672493
Publication Date: June 12, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Very little shelf wear. No inscriptions. Sent by first class mail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Pleasurable Miasma September 8, 2008
A thoroughly engrossing book, interesting, intriguing and ultimately satisfying.
At first it seems like the average tale of a middle-aged middle class American woman, moving to a respectable neighbourhood and having adventures among the eccentricities of a retirement village. It is engaging enough to make you go with it, as Rebecca Miller fills her characters with a sufficient combination of quirks and ordinariness for you to want to live alongside them a little while.
Then begins the sleep walking for Pippa, and from there the novella itself takes on an ethereal quality that reminds one of dreams, or possibly the drugged states to which she refers in the story. It is a masterful use of style. Sometimes as clear as crystal, sometimes as murky as the places Pippa has inhabited.
You get absorbed into the narrative and accept what happens to the characters and the development of their relationships. Some, like Aunt Trish, sadly disappear from the tale and you wish they would reappear because their function is then too obvious and yet their character is intriguing.
The novella reminds me of nothing so much as the film "Factory Girl." There is also the feel of German mid twentieth century fiction about it.
If I have a complaint about this book, it is that it was too short, and that I feel Rebecca Miller could have produced a more complex weave of characters and story.
An Easy Read of Quality September 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and devoured it in as few sittings as possible. It is the kind of book that, for me, has too many extraordinary plot twists and character traits to seem completely realistic, but the writing was so good that I was prepared to suspend belief and just go with the story.
The novel begins with Pippa Lee at 50 years old, married to a man 30 years her senior, and moving into a retirement complex. The first part of the book describes her current life, focussing on her relationship with her husband and two adult children. The second part goes back to Pippa's childhood and charts her wild and self-destructive youth up until she meets her husband and changes her life. The final portion of the book returns to the present day, where all is not right between Pippa and her family, and things have reached breaking point.
I found Pippa to be an interesting if not always likeable character. She seemed to drift through life, easily influenced by others, with little conviction about what she wanted or with any kind of moral compass. Despite this, I liked Pippa. I felt she was very much a product of her childhood and was just a confused, lonely person at heart. I was also interested by a lot of the secondary characters and enjoyed how the author managed to perfectly sum up their personalities in just a few piercing descriptive sentences or lines of dialogue.
Perhaps the one false note was the ending. Part of me feels that the loose ends were all tied up too neatly, within just a few pages, and perhaps the book could have gone on a bit longer to make the ending more realistic. Furthermore, there was also something that happened near the end of the book that just didn't ring true. I won't give too much away, suffice to say that there was almost a metaphysical element to the ending that I found unsatifying.
Overall, I have to give this book 5 stars because it is an intelligent, sensitive novel, and also a real page turner. Who could ask for anything more?
 Oh dear!! August 31, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I rarely review anything, but this is such a stinker I felt I had to!
I don't think I've ever read about such an unconvincing set of characters in my life; when the book began I thought it was going to b a sub-Ann Tyler story of the American literary set, but then it changes to a series of flashbacks.. childhood, an'angry teen' riff, and then a few unsexy sex scenes. Every relationship seemed to be to sound a false note. I agree with the reviewers who found the book anoying; it is! I'm not sure if it's Pippa herself who's intrinsically annoying, or the way she changes character every 5 minutes... I 'get' that it's supposed to be a charting of how people can change ... but even so...
If you want to read about how a woman can change over the course of her life, as she adapts into motherhood and wifedom, then I recommend Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grown Ups. It will mean giving up the sadmasochism, but it's a much better read!
 Don't judge a book by its cover...... August 31, 2008
Another or Richard and Judy's recommended books. The first part of the book I was thinking to myself why have they recommended this? Do I really want to read about some boring middle aged old women who has moved to a retirement village?
But then - BAM! Part 2 where she reveals her childhood and growing up. Some shocking chapters which I really didn't expect to read due to the 'boring wife' character portrayed in Part 1.
An interesting read which really shows that you can't judge a book by it's cover or a person just because of the way that you see them. Many of the things Pippa Lee done when she was younger would not be what you think.
A good read with a sad end and nice twist to the plot.
 Disappointing August 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The opening of the book was mildly engrossing and although I never got truly sucked into it, I finished it nonetheless.
What annoyed me about it was the writing style, I found it terribly clunky in parts and particularly in the first section, there were attempts at descriptive writing which just didn't work, resulting in some unnecessarily wieldy and at times not quite comprehensible sentences. The story is OK, I hoped for some more depth, it was all abit obvious and I just found the main character at times just did not seem credible. I would have loved more development of the other characters, in particular the daughter whom to me had the more interesting persona. I've read worse, but it's not great either.
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