The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern - Lynda Cohen Loigman - ★★★

AUTHOR: Lynda Cohen Loigman

NARRATOR: Gabra Zackman

GENRE: Romance-Drama.

PUBLICATION DATE: October 8, 2024

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A dual-timeline narrative promising historical fiction, romance, and magical realism. The first is exceptional, the second is annoying, and the third is almost non-existent. It is not a bad book, but it is also not a very convincing book, at least in the contemporary timeline. That said, it is easy to see why a majority of readers are gushing over this tale. Mine is a slightly outlier review.

Plot Preview:

1987. Soon to turn eighty, Augusta Stern is forced to retire from her job as a hospital pharmacist. Single and unsure about what to do next, she joins an active retirement community in Florida. The last thing she expects here is to bump into Irving Rivkin, who worked in her father’s pharmacy as a delivery boy and had broken her heart sixty years ago. Augusta is determined not to allow Irving a second chance.

1920s. Brooklyn. Augusta Stern is determined to become a pharmacist some day and assist her father in his pharmacy. After her mother passes away, Great Aunt Esther moves into her nephew’s home to help. An iconoclast healer, Esther soon wins over some of the neighbours with her unconventional healing methods, much to the chagrin of her nephew and the fascination of Augusta. Now torn between pharmacy and alternate healing, Augusta has to decide if there is indeed any validity to Esther’s remedies. At the same time, she is also navigating a potential relationship with young Irving, which isn't as smooth as they thought it would be.

The story comes to us in the third person perspective of Augusta from the two timelines, with some random interludes from Irving and other characters.

PSA: The Goodreads blurb reveals too much.

Bookish Yays:

🌿 The setting of 1920s Brooklyn, with its lifestyle and atmosphere captured wonderfully. The plot highlights the Prohibition era, the gangs, the importance of pharmacists and the role of a traditional pharmacy, and close neighbourly bonds and friendships.

🌿 Esther – the best character of the book in terms of depth, complexity, and sensibility. She has a sense of mystery about her, which further adds to her charm.

🌿 The focus on girls in STEM in the historical timeline, and the challenges and discrimination faced by them. Gender roles come out brilliantly in this timeline.

🌿 The biased view against traditional healing as against allopathic and pharmaceutical knowledge. Coming from a country where traditional healing is at least as valued as allopathy, I found this arc amusing at times. Those who look down on natural remedies don’t know what they are missing.

🌿 The author's note, which really took me by surprise. I didn’t expect any actual people to be the basis of this plot, but they are!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

💊 Historical Augusta is a brilliant young girl who knows what she wants in life and isn’t afraid to chart the path not taken. Contemporary Augusta is rude and judgemental, though she is still intelligent and an achiever. The judgemental part, I could have done without.

💊 The historical timeline is way better in terms of plot, characters, as well as common sense. The contemporary timeline has no common sense, barely any plot, and immature characters. (Which is quite ironic considering the average character age in this timeline. More on this below.) The contemporary timeline drags the overall book down.

💊 The title tells us well in advance that the “love elixir” was prepared/used for/by Augusta Stern, but the mention of the elixir in Augusta’s context comes up only in the last quarter of the book. So the title is quite attractive but it also works as a semi-spoiler. That said, there are some sweet moments towards the end thanks to the titular potion.

💊 We see a couple of tiny glimpses of Jewish beliefs mostly thanks to Esther, but on the whole, there is hardly any Jewish feel to the plot despite the characters being predominantly of that faith. This could have been handled much better, especially in the historical timeline where the atmosphere was more true to life.

Bookish Nays:

💉 In Hindi, there’s an idiom: “budhaape mein doosra bachpana”, which roughly translates to: in old age, people live a second childhood by reverting to childish behaviour. Every main character in the 1987 timeline proves this adage. The issue isn’t with having a second-chance romance while in the eighties. But to see eighty-year-olds act like lovesick teenagers is annoying! Romance for the eighties age group cannot be written the same way as romance for characters in, say, their thirties or their fifties; the priorities of life are so different at each stage. But this book is so standard about the romance that the characters read like they were in their early twenties. After a while, I felt like I was reading a YA love triangle. (Yeah, love triangle! SMH!)

💉 On a related note: Would I really want to reunite with a man, even if he was the love of my teenage years, if he recognises me after 62 years saying “I’d know that *tuchus* anywhere!” Ugh!

💉 Moreover, the age depiction in the contemporary timeline is unrealistic. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that these were eighty-year-olds. I'm not saying that the characters should have been portrayed as senile or physically weak, but at least have some indicator of their age, either through their behaviour or through some physical ailments and aches. How is every single senior citizen in the book not just healthy but also thriving with peak physical fitness?

💉 There is no logical reason as to why “contemporary” is 1987, except that the historical timeline needed the Prohibition era, and the only way to ensure characters from that time were alive was to set the other timeline in 1987. There is absolutely nothing in this timeline to create the 80s atmosphere. No pop culture references, no 80s clothes or hairstyle hints,… Except for the obvious lack of digital tech, the timeline is generic.

💉 The miscommunication trope is overused in both timelines, but especially in the 1987 timeline.

💉 Augusta has had a long and fulfilling career and a loving relationship with the rest of her family, yet her companions consider her life incomplete because she had "no one to share her life with." Sheesh! Can we get rid of this antiquated idea?

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 9 hrs 40 min, is narrated by Gabra Zackman. Her voice didn’t particularly suit either timeline because she sounded too old for teen Augusta and too young for geriatric Augusta. But she deserves credit for keeping the two voices subtly different, helping us to keep the two timelines distinct. I also loved the way she expressed emotions realistically. Her overall performance was praiseworthy.

Plus points to the audio version for including the author’s note.

All in all, the historical timeline had more than enough meat to carry the novel successfully, but the juvenile behaviour in the 1987 timeline spoiled all the fun.

Do note that there’s barely any magical realism in the book. To be clear, the publishers have marked this only as historical fiction and women’s fiction. But several Goodreads reviewers have tagged this book under ‘Magical Realism’, which is incorrect. There is a minor thread of something inexplicable, but no magic as such. Merely using herbal remedies and chanting some prayers doesn’t indicate magical realism.

Recommended to those who enjoy a powerful historical narrative and dual timelines and don’t mind second-chance romances and geriatric characters acting like lovelorn hormonal teens.

3 stars, entirely for the historical timeline.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing the ALC, and St. Martin's Press for providing the DRC of “The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.