Going Places

My Rating: 4/5

Review: This was an interesting story about a young woman who can't make herself stay in one place for very long. It all begins on a bitter cold night with her footprints in the snow and broken glass scattered about. She was escaping from something, but what? Why is her father, whom she hasn't seen in over a year, suddenly taking her away into the night? She doesn't remember anything before that moment, and later, she can't explain why she leaves her lovers without warning over and over again. It's tragic, and intruiging, and strange. The story jumped around so much that it made my head spin. I was bored one minute and on the edge of my seat the next. After all of that, the ending left me feeling a little hollow and dissatisfied. The thing is, though, that seems to be the right sort of feelings to have upon closing this book.

Book Description: Last Night in Montreal is a story of love, amnesia, compulsive travel, the depths and the limits of family bonds, and the nature of obsession. In this extraordinary debut, Emily St. John Mandel casts a powerful spell that captures the reader in a gritty, youthful world — charged with an atmosphere of mystery, promise and foreboding — where small revelations continuously change our understanding of the truth and lead to desperate consequences. Mandel's characters will resonate with you long after the final page is turned.

Lilia Albert has been leaving people behind her entire life. She spends her childhood and adolescence traveling constantly and changing identities. In adulthood, she finds it impossible to stop. Haunted by an inability to remember her early childhood, she moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers along the way, possibly still followed by a private detective who has pursued her for years. Then her latest lover follows her from New York to Montreal, determined to learn her secrets and make sure she's safe.