Take What You Need

by: Idra Novey

Goodreads description:

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need tracks the aftermath of a long estrangement between a stepmother and daughter. Leah is a web editor and young mother who’s sought an urban life and clean break from her rural childhood. But with her stepmother Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.

What Leah discovers is astonishing: Jean has filled the house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who’s played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.

With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeroes in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits. 

Passionate and resonant, Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most, and what can be built from what others have discarded–art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.

Helen says: 🤓🤓

I couldn’t stand this book. It was well written though- I will give the author credit for that. That is my only compliment. I hated everything else about it. I have a feeling you will too.

Holly says: 🤓🤓

I don’t even know what happened here – I did not find this story relatable, believable or cohesive. I read some absolutely rave reviews for this book, so I had to question if I had mistakenly picked up another novel with the same title. But no, this was it. The characters are not believable, and there were so many gratuitous stereotypes thrown in for no comprehensible reason, including random weird conflicts and biases which seem to have very little to do with the story itself. Not for me.