... strikingly original, compelling and beautifully written ... In Come With Me, Schulman’s central preoccupations continue to be the endless complexities of marriage, midlife and family and the ever-pressing need for people, even in Silicon Valley, to connect. Her writing in this new novel has the humor and wit, the careful eye for social detail and astute character development, that made her previous novel, 2011’s This Beautiful Life, a best seller ... Even [though the novel discusses multiverse theory], Schulman weaves all this material — along with multiple points of view — into a tight, urgent narrative that builds in tension until, about a hundred pages in, I found it difficult to put the book down ... One of the many triumphs of Come With Me is that Helen Schulman makes [the ending] enough.
Helen Schulman’s Come With Me delves into the interplay of technology and relationships with edgy, upsetting and tragic results. And yet, the story is also warm, wise and witty ... While Maryam is an interesting character, her portions tend to drag and dominate. More time could be spent on Jack and Lily, for example, whose relationship defines the book in an important way, but who become something of a sad joke, especially once Lily 'attends' a funeral via Skype ... Come With Me respects the human right to feel more than one thing at one time: Sadness and amusement, love and hate, edginess and safety. It’s the kind of all-encompassing acceptance that makes the book feel both contemporary and classic.
... [a] smart, timely and highly entertaining novel ... Schulman deftly moves around, telling her story from various points of view. Sometimes she strays a little far afield — I wasn’t sure I cared about the dating travails of Jack’s girlfriend’s mother, as amusing as they were — but her observations, particularly about the ridiculousness of the Northern Californian start-up mentality, are always apt and sharp.
Now, in her new and... narratively ambitious novel called Come With Me, Schulman splices together an old-school family drama with high-tech fantasy: It's a rich, closely observed story about regrets and stupid risk-taking set mostly among the coders, crunchers and ordinary citizens of Palo Alto ... Come With Me is ingeniously structured around three non-consecutive days in the lives — both virtual and real — of Amy and her family. There are a lot of storylines here, as well as a lot of humor and heart. Amy is the fully realized moral center of the novel, intrigued by innovation, but also graced with a witty feminist skepticism about the male-dominated tech industry ... [The novel] poignantly captures the wonder, as well as the cluelessness, of how we live now.
Astute...affecting ... Schulman’s intriguing premise gives depth to this domestic drama. Adding to that, every sentence sparkles, even minor characters have full and surprising lives, and she pulls it all together in an elegant ending.
More illustrative of the dramatically different universes that can exist within just one reality--or one city, or one family--than it is of technology's increasingly expansive role in our lives. The effect of these shifting viewpoints ultimately feels a bit uneven, and Schulman takes for granted that her readers will be as invested in some characters as they are in others. But, while flawed, Come with Me is a sharply observed, entertaining and occasionally heartrending novel that may help readers appreciate their own, singular, similarly flawed realities.
Schulman is wise to make Amy a runner, not only because the running passages are so richly visual... but also because there is so little room in Amy’s life for contemplation, and running is one of few respites from a countless stream of demands ... There are plenty of auxiliary characters swirling around Dan and Amy, and occasionally the novel digresses deeply into their lives ... At its best, the novel is quietly playful — Amy’s last name is 'Reed,' and her husband’s is 'Messinger,' a remark, perhaps, on their flawed communication.
Come with Me is almost a phenomenal book. The human relationships to which Schulman gives her full attention are vivid and moving. The book feels so full of potential and wonder, hurtling toward imminent revelation, then it collapses into a domestic drama too easily resolved. If it were a longer book, and a braver one, that sudden braking might be avoided, and we might learn the thing that remains just beyond Come with Me’s pages, demanding to be known but never revealing itself.
Thrillingly probes the ways technology and its sometimes alarming possibilities shape a Palo Alto, Calif., family ... Adroit and perceptive, Schulman weaves a deeply felt meditation on the anxiety and complexity of modern relationships.
