Fear and Yoga in New Jersey by Debbie Galant
Growing up in NJ in an environment almost identical to the one portrayed in Galant’s book made this one of the quickest reads ever. I would hate to spoil this book for anyone since it is a work of fiction so let me just say where it falls short on my chart. The book was very well written, almost too well. It followed all of the literary tricks and tools – a heroine who is an anti-hero of sorts, a little twist here and there a climatic ending, but no "aha" or "awakening" moment as the dust jacket promised. The book ends with almost every loose end neatly tied, which normally I live for – but this was too much. I didn’t get a sense that the main character actually grew as an individual (or spiritually as the book portrayed) it seemed more to me that she was like
every New Age groupie, and gets rid of what doesn’t work for her and will probably try the next new fad down the road, which works since the book is satirical in nature but through most of the book I wanted to jump in and punch Nina for being so annoying and such a caricature of suburbia and was hoping in the end for something more dramatic to happen to her. Instead she calmly gets to deal with her life and the changes that have occurred with no cosmic reproach. It reminds me so much of the town I live in now, where no-one ever gets their dues that I hate to have to read a book that further illustrates the fact.
That being said, I don’t know Galant’s background, but she either has lived a similar experience or did a fair amount of research to develop her characters because they were all spot on and extremely viable as living entities. I could have sworn she was writing about my mother in this book when depicting Belle (the main character’s mother), or my 80 year old home (when she is discussing the main character’s meditation room in the attic of her old home)
I give this book 6 out of 7
