Amy Poeppel knows a thing or two about living in separate worlds. For most of her adulthood, Poeppel, her husband, and their sons have lived all over the world, from Dallas to San Francisco to New York to Berlin. With each new city she’s lived in, Poeppel has picked up a piece of the unique culture it offers. Released on June 10, her latest novel, Far and Away, brings all this multicultural splendor straight to its readers! When a frazzled American woman and her polished German counterpart agree to swap houses for the summer, hilarious hijinks ensue. Read on for an in-depth breakdown of the story, a discussion of its themes, and our dream cast!
Synopsis
In Dallas, Lucy Holt’s life just keeps getting complicated. First, her husband, Mason, is in New Mexico for six months pretending he’s living on Mars for space engineering research. Sure, she’s proud of him, but apparently, there’s no way to send messages to the red desert. To make matters worse, their son, Jack, was all set to graduate from high school and start at MIT in the fall, but a scandalous mistake has turned the entire city against them and left his academic future in limbo. Lucy just landed a huge design account for a new hotel conglomerate, but she can’t focus on her remote job when her house is being egged every few hours! All of a sudden, living on Mars doesn’t sound that bad.
In Berlin, up-and-coming art collector Greta Von Bosse just closed a gallery showing for her wealthiest clients yet: the Schultz family. Now, she’s all set to fly to New York for a year for her husband’s sabbatical, where she can visit museums and her daughter, Emmi, who’s starting a law firm internship. But when Dr. Otto Von Bosse’s sabbatical is canceled, he accepts a last-minute offer from Dallas — without telling her. To Greta, Dallas seems as far away from New York and Berlin as Mars is from Earth. Plus, it means saying goodbye to her American downstairs neighbor, Adam, who seems to care much more about her inner life than her own husband does.
At the last minute, the two women agree to a house exchange, leaving Greta and Otto in the Holts’ smart house mansion and Lucy, her son Jack, and her twin daughters, Alice and Zoe, in the Von Bosses’ small yet elegant apartment. As the families acclimate to their new lives, the fresh start offers them all a chance to discover who they really are — and where in the world they really fit.
A Hilarious Commentary on Culture Shock
Otto was…she could not say whether it was the red embroidered shirt, the tall cowboy hat, the big, rectangular belt buckle, or the pointy boots that shocked her most.
— Amy Poeppel, Far and Away
Texas and Germany are just as alien to each other as you would expect, and Amy Poeppel doesn’t shy away from the absurdity of mixing these cultures. As the stern and serious Otto embraces the laidback cowboy lifestyle, you can’t help but laugh at his antics. And the image of the eight-year-old Holt twins speaking the harsh German tongue is almost too much to handle.
The culture shock isn’t all wacky jokes, though. Poeppel also manages to incorporate some genuine lessons on change into her book. The Holts, especially Jack, discover how refreshing anonymity and European aloofness can really be. Jack also embraces the history that Berlin has to offer and soon finds that Europe might hold all the answers he’s ever needed. The Von Bosses, on the other hand, learn to embrace American culture, particularly the openness and friendliness of their new Southern neighbors.
Celebrating the Courage of Starting Anew
All Lucy wanted was a safe haven. And for the first time since the sh*t had hit the family fan, she felt something akin to hope.
— Amy Poeppel, Far and Away
It takes a curious mix of desperation and courage to fly across the world and leave your old life behind, but that’s just what Lucy and Greta do. At first, Lucy views her German excursion as more of a cowardly retreat, but soon, her time in the land of sausage and schnitzel emboldens her. Jack also takes advantage of everything Berlin has to offer, and when Emmi Von Bosse eventually crosses his path, her influence on him is the final push he needs to solidify the person he wants to be.
While Otto takes to Dallas like a duck to water, Greta is not so easily won over. Instead, the transplantation opens her eyes to the marital problems that, up until this point, she’d been able to ignore. Poeppel approaches Greta’s hangups honestly, never painting either spouse as the sole cause for the emotional strain. Greta’s transformation may not be particularly Texan, but it is astonishingly American. Helped by some prompting from her daughter, Emmi, Greta begins to acknowledge her complacency to sexism, both in her marriage and her everyday life. And Lucy, the American stranger now living her discarded life, may be the key to setting Greta back on course.
A Heartwarming Exploration of Found Family
‘I’m Lucy’s mom, Irene.’ And she opened her arms and hugged Greta as though they’d known each other for years, as though they were family.
— Amy Poeppel, Far and Away
Lucy and Greta couldn’t be more different: The first word people use to describe Lucy is “fun,” but for Greta, that word is “regal,” even “uptight.” Between their text exchanges and phone calls, the two women waffle between envy for the other and downright hatred. But as Greta grows closer to Lucy’s parents and Lucy falls in love with Greta’s personal art collection, the two realize there might be something within the other that they’ve always been missing.
The same feelings are echoed in the younger generation as Jack and Emmi weave in and out of each other’s worlds. When Emmi visits her parents in Dallas, she spends the night in Jack’s room and is immediately struck by the kinship she feels for this stranger she’s never met. Even though Emmi unfortunately gets sucked into the nasty rumors being spread about Jack, she is eventually able to meet and understand the person he truly is. With Emmi, Jack is finally able to escape the limited shackles of his life in America. Namely, his status as an uninteresting (now horrendous), nerdy loser. Instead, when he meets Emmi, he can simply just…be.
What could have made this book even better?
While Amy Poeppel succeeds in crafting memorable characters and an interesting plot, some aspects of Far and Away could have been improved. Namely, the handling of feminism within the plot is a bit clumsy at times. Poeppel is tasked with creating a scandal that would be harsh enough to warrant serious consequences for Jack while also not making the readers despise him. The mistake Jack makes in the novel may not be as horrible as the rumor mill makes it out to be, but it’s far from minor. While Poeppel does take care to have Jack think through his actions and atone for his sexism, the narrative, especially from Lucy’s perspective, spends too much time trying to reduce his actions and couch his culpability. With a little more intention, this plot point could have carried more impact.
Poeppel has an undeniable talent for fashioning unforgettable characters, but the opening chapters introduce the readers to so many new names, it’s hard to keep up. Aside from this, Poeppel jumps from narrator to narrator, giving Lucy, Greta, Jack, Emmi, and even Mason a time at the helm. While having multiple voices is exciting and captivating, the constant switching does, at times, sacrifice development. For one thing, readers are only given the smallest taste of Jack and Emmi’s inner worlds before the book comes to an end. A more even distribution of the POVs may have allowed the audience a more comprehensive grasp of the characters. Despite these minor flaws, Far and Away remains a fun, summery adventure.
Final Thoughts
Far and Away is an exciting travel novel bursting with colorful characters and laugh-out-loud humor. Amy Poeppel is known for embracing chaos in her writing, and this book is full of that zany quickness. While some aspects of the story may have benefited from further development, it was still a fun trip across America and Europe that will leave you aching to grab your passport. If you love female-driven stories with characters who feel like your best friends, then this book is for you!
You’ll love Far and Away if you enjoyed these books:
- Small World by Laura Zigman
- The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
- Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner
- City of Friends by Joanna Trollope
Bookstr’s Far and Away Dream Cast:
- Jessica Rothe as Lucy Holt
- Oona Chaplin as Greta Von Bosse
- Valerio Mastandrea as Otto Von Bosse
- Charlie Plummer as Jack Holt
- Thomasin McKenzie as Emmi Von Bosse
- Luke Kirby as Adam Lance
Final Score: 3/5
You can order Far and Away from Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Amazon! A special thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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