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Summary: observations of the relationship between sex, death & love
Review: A mother dying of breast cancer who wants to love, a daughter with a revolving door into her bedroom but a Beware sign on her heart, a desperate, acerbic friend whose lips puff like down pillows and beds a man because she likes that he likes her, a woman who obsesses over her husband's infidelity, and a teenage girl with moxie who lends out her body like a library book while her father pines over the mother that left them behind: Elizabeth, Rachel, Angela, Emma, and Georgia are the central figures in Lisa Glatt's auspicious novel-in-stories, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That. The novel shifts between the women's points of view from 1997-2000, all bearing the weight of someone leaving. At the center is poetry teacher, Rachel Spark, who has been coping with her chipper mother, Elizabeth's bought with terminal breast cancer. For over six years, Rachel has remained in her mother's home, ferreting Elizabeth to chemo sessions, cosmetic surgery and leech therapy all amidst Rachel's own unraveling. A bevy of men haunt her bedrooms with their accents, their stories and finally, after an unprotected one-night stand with a Brit and a mother who creeps quickly towards death, Rachel finally confronts loss and the possibility of life after her mother. During the day, Emma Bloom lectures girls about safer sex, sees girls with round bellies, STD cancers that fester and spread, infecting a girl's body and stands side-by-side with the woman she found kissing her husband (a man who studies bats) and wonders about love, what does it imply, who does it implicate and how it is possible that one can love and be comforted too soon. Most compelling is Georgia. A teenager alone with a brother who longs for escape from their cold home, a despondent father, and a mother who has taken up house with another - Georgia's body is this thing - this empty thing that gives her power. Bodies are merely an assortment of parts that can be manipulated and molded to get one through one's day. A breast implant provides posture, balance - a mouth is an oracle to quiet with cruel words or silence through oral sex, - Lisa Glatt's debut is all at once an uncomfortable and unflinching look about women's complicated relationship with their bodies. Many of the characters bear the weight of abandonment by their loved ones and often are left to raise themselves. Disease with respect to relationships and the body is so intricately linked which raises an eye to the close relationship between sex, death and love. Glatt's dialogue is authentic, prose sparkles and many of the passages are absolutely heartbreaking. The structure is a bit rough at times with the reader having to flip back and forth to locate oneself in time (same with long passages that switch between present/past tense), however, that aside, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That is honest, pensive and uncompromising.
Rating:
Summary: Raw and Real
Review: Glatt will keep you enthralled as you follow the lives of several complex and multifaceted women dealing with issues small(sexual preferences) and large(death and infidelity). Has a Sex in the City feel, but much grittier and raw. Don't look for a cookie cutter ending to this novel. Rachel and the other characters in this book are far too real for a Disney ending.
Rating:
Summary: very nearly perfect
Review: I am so in love with this book, even though it's a little weak in a few spots. It's like the author was trying a little too hard to make a group of unrelated short stories hang together. However, this shouldn't stop you from reading this book. It's phenomenal and the strengths more than make up for the weaknesses. This is one of the books that once you read, you'll want everyone you know to read so you can have someone to talk about it with.
Rating: 
Summary: More a series of short stories
Review: I don't disagree with any of the other reviewers as I can see both points of view as to whether or not this is a good novel about women. My problem is that the book seemed to be a series of short stories, and the author says in the introduction that parts of the book have appeared in previous publications. My only interest was in the main character Rachel and her mother, and there just wasn't enough of that plot for me. Even though Glatt used different ways to tie in the stories of the other women, I did not think of the book as a novel. So I wouldn't recommend the book although I'm glad I read it - contradictory views I know.
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Summary: A Brilliant Debut Novel
Review: I truly loved this book. You don't just read this novel, you climb inside and inhabit the lives of these women. Then when you've finished it, you find they inhabit your life. The characters stay with you--like all great writing does. Rachel Spark and the crazy, sad, wonderful people around her are beautifully drawn. The dialogue is sharp and the characters' frailities and strengths paint a telling picture of how we live with grief,love and regret. At once hilarious and bittersweet, this is a great read. Buy/borrow/steal this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of my Time!
Review: In my opinion, this book lacked plot and an interesting storyline. It skipped around from character to character and lacked in all areas. Very depressing stories for each character. It took me 3-4 weeks to finish this book. Normally I will not put something down until I'm finished. Skip It.
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Summary: Wow!!!!!
Review: It's almost 4 o'clock in the morning and I just finished reading this book because I couldn't bring myself to put it down any earlier. I'm just getting online now to tell the world how great it is before I put myself to bed. I feel so exhilirated and moved; it's rare that a book does this to me. This is simply an incredibly honest and gripping portrayal of a set of intertwined characters and their struggles with their identities, their lives, and their need to understand and be understood by others. Don't let 2005 go by without reading this one.
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Summary: Honest and fabulously relatable
Review: Lisa Glatt wrote a novel that was so honest and full of flawed, but lovable women. Each character is developed throughout the piece and we begin to see why the characters make the choices that they do. It is very clear that Glatt knows exactly what makes a woman tick and why we make the choices (and sometimes mistakes) that we do.
This is anything but a surface-level book, but not too over-the-top that you will be depressed for a long time after reading it. Glatt approaches the subjects in this novel with humor, knowledge and her unique writing style.
I recommend this book to both males and females of any age.
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Summary: tragic beauty
Review: Lisa Glatt's book is not chick lit or anything close to it. If you want to read about shopping and fashion and silly girl crushes, go elsewhere. This is serious literature, about cancer and looming death and unavoidable loneliness, and the dark, sad, sometimes sleezy, places depressed women go to hide as a result. Glatt is an honest writer. Beautifully honest. In fact, she makes tragedy almost appealing.
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Summary: A Beautiful Novel About Being a Woman
Review: Lisa Glatt's novel, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That is a wonderfully written novel concerned with essentially what it is to be female in contemporary American society. Rachel, the protagonist, is dealing with relationship failures and successes, her mother's bouts with breast cancer, abortion, birth control, friendship, weight gain and many other issues women confront. The novel will make you think about all of these issues, but it will also make you laugh and make you smile. Rachel is not a perfect protagonist. She'll annoy you sometimes with the choices she makes, but in the end that is what makes this book so compellingly readable: Rachel's humanity. Enjoy.
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