I’ll Be Right Here is a character-driven novel that explores both biological and chosen family relationships through a non-linear narrative structure.
Bloom writes with emotional warmth and subtle humor, creating complex characters who love freely and support one another unconditionally.
While I appreciated the depth of the characters and their connections, I found the constantly shifting timeline confusing, which made it harder for me to fully immerse myself in their lives.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I think this book is about family—as much, if not more, about the family you choose as the family you are genetically from. It gets a little confusing at some points with all the characters and is quite explicit with regards to romantic and sexual activities but it does seem to be a necessary part of the story.

Thank you to netgalley and random House for this ARC to read. All opinions are my own.

I'll Be Right Here is a sprawling, expanding family portrait that is more like a painting or a mosaic than a novel or a story—it's as if the painter had a huge canvas, and in no particular order, made portraits of the characters whenever and wherever they were in carefully developed swatches. There is no chronological order, and sometimes it was hard for me to remember who everybody was. But as with Amy Bloom's other books, the writing is so lush and colorful with warmth that practically radiates off the page that you just keep reading.

In all her books, Bloom writes messy characters with messy lives, and this book epitomizes that: the family here includes blood relatives as well as chosen relations, and the relationships incorporate incestuous love, spouse swapping with siblings, polyamorous and gay characters being who they are unapologetically even before it was legal. The title, although never explained, says it all: "I'll be right here," is the line E.T. The Extraterrestrial (in the movie of the same name) says to the little boy Elliot when he is leaving. I don't know if this is where Bloom got it, but to me, it feels right: all these people who make up a chosen family remain "right here" in our heads/hearts, no matter if they are here or living or dead.

I had a bizarre reaction early on. I didn't even make the connection, but suddenly I had a craving for heavy, high-thread-count cotton sheets; the longing was so strong, I actually bought some. Then I went back to the book and realized I'd been so seduced into a world of objects, including hotel sheets, that are so warm they seem animated.

I read Amy Bloom for her voice, and will continue to read anything she writes.

this was a pretty good book. I think it was a bit too heavily focused on the war, but other than that I did like the family dynamics discussed, the themes of immigration, family dysfunction, and love are discussed. Overall it was a good book!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This was a beautifully written multi-generational epic novel that focused more on character interrelationships than on plot. I did find it a bit challenging with the timelines jumping continuously from past, present, going back and forth while following the characters lives and their relationships with one another but significantly understood how their past events influenced them in the present. It was a joy to read and sorry it had to end. I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley and have been privileged to have read this exquisite story.

I’ll Be Right Here by Amy Bloom was the latest book I’ve read. This was a great read and I’d highly recommend it.

Amy Bloom is a fine and gifted writer, but this novel requires some thoughtfulness to unpick. There are so many characters, some related by blood but mostly not. Regardless, they all end up as close family. My favorite part of the novel is about Gazala, a young Algerian orphan who comes to live in wartime Paris... She ends up living with and working for the famous French novelist, Colette. Through Madame Colette, Gazala meets the jeweler to the Duchess of Windsor and then helps her to emigrate to the Unites States. There she becomes close friends with the Cohen family, particularly sisters Anne and Alma.

From there, it seems, she and we accrue connections including Samir, another Algerian who was her "adopted" brother. Bloom will introduce you to spouses, lovers, children, and even the granddaughter of their realtor,. Bloom will also explain how polyamory and throuples operate. It is amazing how Amy Bloom connects each person. central or peripheral, to each of the "greats" or older ones with spouses, offspring, lovers and friends. We follow all of these through old age and death, feeling their joys and their pain. Family doesn't require sharing blood or genes. It's a short book but contains multitudes. Thanks to Random House and net galley for an early copy to read and review.

I am a big fan of Amy Bloom, but I found this difficult and “crowded”. There were too many characters, too many names and too many subplots. So, despite her beautiful writing, this was not for me. I was disappointed in this novel.

Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity to read and review this novel.

I love Amy Bloom’s writing and her storytelling flair, that knew I wanted to read her new book the second I learned she had a new novel coming out….
….which follows her last 2022 memoir, “In love: A Memoir of Love and Loss” …. one of the most emotionally powerful, lifetime memorable and transformative memoirs I’ve ever read.

Other books I’ve loved by Amy are:
….”Where the God of Love Hangs Out” (a collection of short stories)
….”Away” (Historical Fiction… incredibly powerful about a young adult Russian Jewish woman who flees to America after her family was slaughtered).
….”White Houses” (a dazzling Historical Fiction story about a friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok)
….”Lucky Us” (historical, literary, coming-of-age) … pre and post Holocaust events .. stories about families, sisters, and dreams… with a full cast of multi dimensional rich characters.

I also always love the *Book Cover Art* on Amy’s books….
“I’ll Be Right Here” is another beauty - *deliciously beautiful*,
…..that I decided to go searching to see if I could find out anything about them.
Sure enough, I did.

Amy herself tells us that the cover art celebrates the significance of the everyday.
“The stories behind my covers are, almost always, more story, Bloom says. I love the work of Sherrie Wolf, the exceptional painter who has done many of my covers. Her paintings are lush, perceptive, odd, unexpected, sometimes sexy, and oftentimes, literally dislocating. Her paintings poke and question. (Where did those cherries come from? Why are there mountains right behind the still life? Who would put that, there?) small things are magnified; everyday objects are in the wrong place”.

“I’ll Be Right Here” is set in the 21st century in the aftermath of WWII. A multigenerational family living in New York City.

Gazala immigrates alone as a teenager from Paris to New York. She becomes friends with two sisters: Anne and Alma Cohen. The Cohen family, the sister’s parents welcomed Gazala into their home. She had dinner with their family almost every Friday night.
Soon, Gazala’s brother, Samir also moves to Manhattan from Paris.
Gazala, Samir, Anne, and Alma become each others supportive network. Their tribal group has each other‘s back during life transitions, challenges, marriages, divorces, children, tragedies…dealing with love, loss, and life.

There were pleasures, contentment, happiness, grief, havoc & chaos, desires, love/loss/life complexities,
as well as pride, self-growth, and accomplishments.
Most …. (for me) …. it was the everyday closeness I felt with the characters….
….the things they did together or individually,
their inner thoughts. I enjoyed hanging out with them—getting to know them—
root for them—feel close to them.

The storytelling is character driven…less plot driven. I like these type of books (I liked ‘this’ book very much)…..
The only slight problem I had ‘a little’ were changing locations, dates and back-and-forth time-period-switching that was a tad challenging for me.
It didn’t interrupt my enjoyment in totality of the storytelling. But I questioned ‘myself’ a few times. Was I reading it right? We spend time in France, New York, Mexico, New Jersey, packed New York,….
I’m also left with the history (the horrors) of France… (not history I haven’t already known) during the Holocaust and WWII.
There was some very deep in intimate storytelling about the struggles, the hunger, the devastation…..
There was also the journey of an improved life.
Gazala was a wonderful standout character. She and her brother Samir - and their friends Anne, Alma, Lily, etc. felt like very real people— nothing caricature about them.

With authentic storytelling, beautiful writing, characters I enjoyed spending time with, revisiting history that’s important to me (I’m Jewish),
“I’ll Be Right Here” was a fulfilling and gratifying read!!!
Thank you Amy!!

A couple of excerpts… (memories for myself even)
“Everyone is hungry and talks about food, stories of ingenuity of meals remembered (not everyone wants to hear about the simple, perfect chicken, a woman we don’t know made with rosemary and lemon and twenty-four cloves of garlic in 1939, but some customer wants to tell the story and stretches out her arms to show you just how big and fat that chicken was), or how people were making fools of themselves all over the city”.

“There is something wrong with my knees. They have knobs of bone, like buttons, sticking out below my kneecaps. Samir said that if I ever weigh enough, the buttons will disappear. You’ll be smooth, he said”.

It’s not the first time that I have had sex with a man I don’t like. I am determined. I want to undo what I have done, to change the past so that I am a girl who took long walks with a few unlikely men, not a girl who killed three German soldiers.

Gazala’s thoughts about her first time having consensual sex:
“It’s not bad, but it’s not what Madame’s books said it might be. It’s not shivering silk and light from within and waves of desire. I have never made love before, as such, and it’s too bad that the first time is the way it is”.

For me this was like reading an old-fashioned family saga but with a modern twist. It was somewhat challenging at times to follow the back and forth time-line and the back and forth stories of the relationships beween Gazala and Samir, whose relationship was unusual (!) and their friends, sisters Anne and Alma (these four known by the next generation as ‘The Greats’) and their unorthodox relationships and on to the next generation. A complex plot-free story of lives lived, friendship, and lovers. Not for everyone; as a reader you have to be committed, but worthwhile and beautifully written. At the end I’m not sure I could have described in psychological detail any of the characters except perhaps Samir, the only male with a major role, and I suspect in a few weeks I will have a hard time remembering much of what occured! It helps to read the ‘blurb-description’ if you get a bit lost! The cover is beautiful! Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a digital ARC.

Words can not describe nor can they do justice to this remarkable, multi-generational saga of relationships, love -lost and found - happiness, sadness, grief and every other possible human emotion. Beautifully told, the anchors of the story are Samir and his younger sister, Gazala, orphaned in the war in Algeria and separated for decades. I have chills thinking about the way this elaborate but also simple tale evolves, and, in the evolution of the story, the evolution of the characters who leap off the page as an extended family.

It is a story that makes the reader believe in fate while simultaneously believing in the general, remarkable, serendipitous nature of the human condition. Simply a marvelous book with so many layers that I leave it to the next person fortunate enough to read it.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley. It was a privilege to read it.

I found this story difficult to follow with how it jumped from time to time and place to place. Read about half then skimmed to the end. Thank you to the author publisher and Netgalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review. Just not for me.

Loved this epic story. Bloom is a powerhouse of a writer. The characters are richly crafted and beautifully executed throughout the book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.