As a young woman who desperately wanted to be one of the Gilmore Girls, I knew as soon as I found out that Lauren Graham had written a novel, I would be reading it.
Synopsis
It’s January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left on the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing “important” work. But all he has to show for her efforts is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club. Her roommates – her best friend, Jane, and Dan, an aspiring writer – are supportive, yet Franny knows a two-person fan club doesn’t exactly count as success. Everything is riding on the upcoming showcase for her acting class, where she’ll have a chance to perform for people who could hire her. And she can’t let herself be distracted by James Franklin, a notorious flirt, and the most successful actor in her class. Meanwhile, her bank account is dwindling, her father wants her home, and her agent doesn’t return her calls. But for some reason, she keeps believing that she just might get what she came for.
Review
I developed a very strong love-hate relationship with this book. First, Columbia must encourage all their budding writers to write in the über-annoying present-continuous tense (I think that’s what it is – for being a Language Arts teacher, I’m not very good at identifying my tenses) as opposed to most novels, which are written in the past or present perfect tense. Basically, everything is written from Franny’s current point of view – no one knows what will happen next and it’s not reflective in any way. Second, I just didn’t find it funny. After finishing Someday, Someday, Maybe, I realized that Lauren Graham recorded the audiobook – this one probably should have been put into the listening list. And third, it’s incredibly difficult to get into a perfectly decent book when you have what could quite possibly be your new favorite book waiting in the wings (The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan).
However, those three things aside, Someday, Someday, Maybe really is a delightful book, but it took me a good 200 pages (2/3 of it) to really realize it’s potential, like how it took Franny, our protagonist, the same amount of time to realize her own potential (the correlation was not lost on me). Lauren Graham is in a unique position to offer a very realistic perspective on the struggles of an up and coming actor in New York in the 1990s for the very simple fact that she was one. “They” always say “write what you know” and Graham clearly knows her subject matter and her protagonist inside and out. She knows her so well, that I asked myself more than once while reading if it wasn’t a touch autobiographical in nature.
I had fears starting out – “Franny” isn’t a name I often associate with characters I like (thank you GREEK) and I think so highly of Lauren Graham as an actress that I was afraid her writing might not measure up to the ridiculous high standard to which I hold her creative endeavors. She is one of my inspirations, one of my idols, and I didn’t want to expose myself to anything that may, even slightly, refute my opinion that she should be up on a marble pedestal. And what if I didn’t find it funny? What if I thought it just fell flat? For the first, I had to remind myself that Lauren Graham is a person and therefore potentially flawed – her book wouldn’t be perfect, but I can still respect her highly. For the second, I didn’t laugh aloud. Not once. And that was a bit disappointing. I didn’t find Franny annoying as I feared I might, but I didn’t find her as funny as everyone else in the book seemed to. I don’t know if this was intentional on Graham’s part or not, but personally I was hoping for a few more laughs.
I would read Someday, Someday, Maybe on the beach or on vacation. I would read it at a time when I’m not continually trying to understand the nature of the universe or sort out my own life and choices. I would read Someday, Someday, Maybe on a day when I didn’t have to care or worry about much else than simply enjoying a delightful book by an enthusiastic author/actress.
Rating: 5 out of 10 stars
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