Hold Still: A Novel
When Maya Taylor, an English professor with a tendency to hide in her books, sends her daughter to Florida to look after a friend's child, she does so with the best of intentions; it's a chance for Ellie, twenty and spiraling, to rebuild her life. But in the sprawling hours of one humid afternoon, Ellie makes a mistake she cannot take back. In two separate timelines--before and after the catastrophe--Maya and Ellie must try to repair their fractured relationship and find a way to transcend not only their differences but also their more troubling similarities. "[Melding] psychological insight, precise plotting and limpid prose" (Huffington Post), Lynn Steger Strong traces the anatomy of a mistake and the weight of culpability. Hold Still marks a taut and propulsive debut that "builds to a perfect crescendo, an ending that is both surprising and true" (Marcy Dermansky, author of The Red Car).
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Community Reviews
Hold Still by Lynn Steger Strong
263 pages
What’s it about?
Can your child ever do anything that you cannot forgive them for? How responsible are you, and your parenting, for their mistakes? This novel centers on the relationship between Maya and her daughter Ellie, and how they try to find their way after tragedy strikes.
What did it make me think about?
It made me think about parenting. About our children- what they become. How much of whom they are is due to our parenting, and how much is their responsibility? This novel asks lots of interesting questions as it explores the bond between mother and daughter.
Should I read it?
I liked this novel, but I did not love this novel. It made me think, but it did not captivate me. It was just too easy to put down. I could never fully understand either Maya or Ellie’s motivations, and basically did not get very invested in their characters. This was the downfall of this novel for me. It took me until the last page to really care too much about either one of them.
Quote-
“Before she realized it, she’d laughed. And she’d been terrified by this, this moment. By feeling like all that had happened hadn’t happened after all. She’d been terrified by the implication that they might somehow have moments when they didn’t remember, that they might still get to live.”
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