I see why this is a good book, and I admire what Llosa did here. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
This is a book about tI see why this is a good book, and I admire what Llosa did here. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
This is a book about the events surrounding Trujillo's assassination in the Dominican Republic, told from a variety of perspectives: Trujillo himself, the several men involved in the plot to kill him (who seemed pretty interchangeable to me as characters and really didn't need individual narratives), and a woman named Urania years later, looking back on the events from her unique perspective as she visits her estranged father in the Dominican Republic years later.
Although I can't claim to know much about the Trujillo era, if Wikipedia can be trusted Llosa did his research and got the details right. I'm usually not a fan of fiction that speculates about the inner lives of actual people, but I did find Llosa's renderings of Trujillo, his henchmen, and his assassins complex and believable. And I'm also not a fan of multiple narratives, but here it kind of worked.
Now for the bad: I found this book heavy on many levels. The writing was dense and detailed; the subject matter dark and depressing. It wasn't an easy book to get through and felt bloated at times. Though some of the characters were interesting (I particularly liked the rendering of President Balaguer), many of them left me cold when it came to personality, particularly Urania who, as another reviewer pointed out, was a Mary Sue.
If you have a special interest in the Trujillo era I think this is a good book to read; if you're just looking for an interesting or gripping read, this may not be the best choice.
Merged review:
I see why this is a good book, and I admire what Llosa did here. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
This is a book about the events surrounding Trujillo's assassination in the Dominican Republic, told from a variety of perspectives: Trujillo himself, the several men involved in the plot to kill him (who seemed pretty interchangeable to me as characters and really didn't need individual narratives), and a woman named Urania years later, looking back on the events from her unique perspective as she visits her estranged father in the Dominican Republic years later.
Although I can't claim to know much about the Trujillo era, if Wikipedia can be trusted Llosa did his research and got the details right. I'm usually not a fan of fiction that speculates about the inner lives of actual people, but I did find Llosa's renderings of Trujillo, his henchmen, and his assassins complex and believable. And I'm also not a fan of multiple narratives, but here it kind of worked.
Now for the bad: I found this book heavy on many levels. The writing was dense and detailed; the subject matter dark and depressing. It wasn't an easy book to get through and felt bloated at times. Though some of the characters were interesting (I particularly liked the rendering of President Balaguer), many of them left me cold when it came to personality, particularly Urania who, as another reviewer pointed out, was a Mary Sue.
If you have a special interest in the Trujillo era I think this is a good book to read; if you're just looking for an interesting or gripping read, this may not be the best choice....more
I happen to think he's a good writer, if bleak and cynical when it comes to the human conditiIt feels a little bad to give Jonathan Franzen two stars.
I happen to think he's a good writer, if bleak and cynical when it comes to the human condition. I found myself depressed and yet pretty compelled by both The Corrections and Freedom, despite their heftiness. Here, though, Franzen committed one of the greatest sins of which a novelist can be accused. He bored me.
Okay, that's a bit of an overstatement. I did finish the book, and was even eager to pick it up at points. But those periods were relatively brief, and this book was huge. Aside from its bloated nature, one of the reasons I was bored was that I felt these characters had already appeared (and were far more interesting and believable) in Freedom. The megalomaniac celebrity. The straight man in his shadow, with more conventional achievements and succeeding at the long-term relationship that eludes the celebrity. The sharp-edged woman who bounces between the two of them.
I might go so far as to describe this book as Dickensian. It's only natural, with a main character nicknamed Pip. But the book was also Dickensian in that most of the story was backstory, a storytelling tactic that tends to evoke ambivalence in me although that may be unfair. Unfortunately, I was never a fan of Dickens. And although I'm usually okay with unlikeable characters as long as they're well-drawn, these characters stretched the limits of the amount of unlikeability I can handle, making it even more of a chore to slog through this at times.
What I liked about this book, believe it or not? The title. Many commented on "Purity" as an ironic title, given the characters' dark and distorted behavior (which was certainly hard to take at times). But I actually thought Franzen was trying to make a different statement. So many characters in the book flirted with the idea of moral purity in different ways. The title character, living in a squatter's apartment with freegans accusing each other of moral vanity. Feminist rhetoric versus feminist behavior. Telling the truth and facing the consequences vs. lying to protect. There were other moments throughout the book where the title resonated in a variety of ways, and I actually thought that was pretty brilliant. The whole question about purity, what does it mean to be pure, are anyone's motives pure, can morality and motives ever be pure, was a great theme.
But maybe that was the problem. I often quote Stephen King here on goodreads, who recommended in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that authors not start out with a theme -- just tell a good story, and the theme(s) will emerge. My guess here is that Jonathan Franzen started with the theme, and then built the story around it, recycling characters and forcing a variety of behaviors and interactions in order to make his point. Whether or not that's in fact the case, that's how the book read. It felt contrived at times, in addition to over-the-top bleak and, well, boring.
So, two stars. But I will still pick up his next book....more
Eh. I thought I was interested in the Salem witch trials. But maybe I'm not quite as interested as I thought. Or more accurately, this book spent a grEh. I thought I was interested in the Salem witch trials. But maybe I'm not quite as interested as I thought. Or more accurately, this book spent a great deal of time on details that interested me only mildly and kind of glossed over the aspects of the story that capture my attention more.
Stacy Schiff is a good writer, and she's clearly done her research. This book is highly atmospheric and really brings the era to life; it could be a good choice for someone who wants to write a novel set in this time and place. That being said, at a certain point I grew tired of reading a lot of repetitive detail as yet another witch was brought to trial, imprisoned, and executed, with an ever-growing cast of characters that became very difficult to keep straight. I would have liked less narrative and more discussion about the possible underpinnings of this phenomenon. My sense is that, as in Cleopatra: A Life, Schiff was committed to integrity and did not want to indulge in speculation. We can never truly know why this actually happened, of course. But as someone who clearly knows so much about the period, surely she can offer some more informed suggestions. I was also disappointed that she never acknowledged the possibility (posited by a different researcher of this period) that the accusing girls' convulsions were rooted in a medical illness. Even if that theory isn't the accepted one, it would have been interesting to learn about why.
Anyway, if you're obsessed with incredibly curious about this period of history, feel free to give this book a go. For most of us, though, I suspect the level of detail and length will outweigh your curiosity and unfortunately there's not a lot of reward for the effort. Three stars for being well-written, well-researched, and ambitious though....more
Unfortunately there was a gap between my reading this on a long, half-focused plane ride and my managing to find the time to sit down and write a reviUnfortunately there was a gap between my reading this on a long, half-focused plane ride and my managing to find the time to sit down and write a review. Also regrettably, there was an even longer gap between my reading of this book and my reading of The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating, which would have been a great compare-and-contrast. Like Kiera Van Gelder, Rachel Reiland writes a raw account of her gradually transformed inner world as a sufferer of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who begins to reinvent herself and her ways of relating to others through therapy. Whereas Kiera Van Gelder received Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a structured, research-supported program specifically designed to address BPD's particular constellation of difficulties, Reiland spent years working with a psychoanalytic therapist who saw her three times a week and spent a great deal of time delving into her past and working through transference issues. To my understanding psychoanalytic psychotherapy is considered by many to be passe and lacking in empirical support, but it seems to have worked for Rachel. It was a long and arduous process, though, and reading this book often felt long as well.
It's always difficult to know with memoirists how accurately they're recalling events, especially when it comes to detailed dialogues. And of course, memoirists by definition are telling the story from their own perspective and are unreliable narrators. I was curious how the book would have read if it had been written by her incredibly supportive husband or her therapist. Or by any of her family members, who are depicted as supremely dysfunctional. Sufferers of BPD by definition often have skewed views of their relationships and of those around them, which casts another layer of doubt, although Reiland did a decent job of showing the reader the way that her mind often twisted her perceptions of those around her.
Although this book wasn't exactly enjoyable to read, it was certainly informative to spend time in the head of a sufferer of BPD and experience, together with her, the intense emotional roller coaster that divided her from those around her. It was also interesting to contemplate her relationship with her therapist, who sometimes seemed to be feeding into her dependence on him but ultimately seems to have been effective in helping her tame her demons. This book would be great to discuss with a group of mental health professionals with experience treating BPD, especially in comparison with The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating.
I was quite taken with the premise of this memoir. Susannah, a twenty-something reporter for the New York Post, suddenly begins to feel and act like sI was quite taken with the premise of this memoir. Susannah, a twenty-something reporter for the New York Post, suddenly begins to feel and act like she's losing her mind. Manic episodes, paranoia, delusions, and other symptoms all overtake her. Initially the doctors have difficulty finding a physical cause and assume she needs psychiatric care. As her situation deteriorates, though, a particularly prescient doctor diagnoses her with a rare and recently discovered syndrome which is entirely neurological in nature and successfully treats her, to the point where she regains the vast majority of her pre-illness functioning. Susannah raises the valid and provocative question of whether many individuals diagnosed with chronic bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder, may actually have this illness which is not actually psychiatric in nature and very treatable.
Unfortunately the process of reading the book did not live up to the promise of the central situation. While I genuinely empathized with Susannah's horrific experience of illness, I found the book itself to be draggy, slow, and repetitive at times. I just wanted to get through the parts about her hospital experience and reach the point where she got her correct diagnosis. I admired Susannah's painstaking efforts to reconstruct in vivid detail an experience she lived through when she was clearly not all there; she certainly put her investigative reporting skills to good use. With that said, I somehow couldn't immerse myself fully in the story and felt it would have worked far better for me as an article.
It was certainly fascinating for me, though, to think about whether the many individuals I've encountered in my work presenting with bipolar and/or schizophrenic symptoms might actually be misdiagnosed, and about the whole brain-body connection.
My mother once wondered if there are no new stories out there, just new ways of telling them. She observed that many popular novels are constructed inMy mother once wondered if there are no new stories out there, just new ways of telling them. She observed that many popular novels are constructed in a non-linear, out-of-order fashion and that oftentimes the story, if told in a more traditional manner, would actually not be that interesting. I thought of that as I was reading this huge novel.
This book is a commitment of time and focus. Not only is it massive (830 pages!), but it's written in style of a 19th century novel, which for me at least meant great writing but an effort to re-immerse myself every time I picked it up. I loved the psychological insights, the rich writing, and the interesting if mostly unsympathetic characters. But although the book flowed once I got into it, it wasn't something I could easily just pick up and put down. Which is a bit of a problem when a book is this long, because I can't imagine anyone has the lifestyle to read an 800+-page book in just a few long sittings.
The story is told to us in bits and pieces, initially through a series of conversations rotating around twelve different characters and later through events described in a somewhat shifting order. I don't usually have a high tolerance for this type of thing, so it's saying a lot that I was able to roll with it. That said, toward the end I found it a bit more challenging to maintain my focus. There were a lot of characters, perspectives, and interlocking events to keep track of. And the effort did wear on me by the time I reached page 600 or so, although not to the point where I was ready to abandon it.
Fans of Iain Pears will probably enjoy this story, a complex, insightful, and well-written historical mystery. If that's not your thing, don't bother. Life is too short....more
Once again, a reluctant three. 'Cause let's be honest -- a lot of this book was really dumb. Silly and over the top. And it also went on way too long;Once again, a reluctant three. 'Cause let's be honest -- a lot of this book was really dumb. Silly and over the top. And it also went on way too long; chick lit should be short and sweet. But there was some semi-interesting stuff here, buried among all the chick lit cliches (puppet men, good women who were sassy and spunky, bad women who were too stupid to live, etc., etc.).
Grace is a lifestyle blogger, living in the perfect house, thinking she's married to the perfect man until -- surprise! She discovers that he's having an affair with her 26-year-old assistant. Whereupon Grace pulls a movie-ready stunt straight from the pages of Switcheroo (I'll give Mary Kay Andrews the benefit of the doubt here, but the humor of the scene really lost in the duplication even if it was accidental).
So now, forced to move in with her blue-collar mother, Grace also finds herself the victim of a misogynistic judge who sentences her to divorce group therapy. The therapist is completely out to lunch (her unpunished incompetence could only happen in the pages of a chick lit novel), but the group members discover that they can provide each other with support during post-group meetings in Grace's mother's bar. Grace discovers friends, a love interest, a new and exciting project...you get the picture. Turns out, divorce was the best thing that could have happened to her.
Okay. So this was severely over the top, with unbelievable characters and plot twists, and way too long. I remember enjoying Savannah Blues a lot more, although that may have been timing (I think I was craving chick lit more at that time) and/or the fact that that was my first Mary Kay Andrews novel.
Still, though, I did finish it and I'm giving it three stars because it was a light and entertaining audiobook that got me through a lot of laundry. There were some mildly interesting themes and conflicts, even if they weren't fully explored. Silly though this was, it wasn't completely superficial or uninteresting.
Meh. By the end I was leaning more toward two stars, but I decided to just go with three since my interest was more or less sustained most of the timeMeh. By the end I was leaning more toward two stars, but I decided to just go with three since my interest was more or less sustained most of the time.
This book centers around members of a college baseball team. There was an interesting division of opinion on goodreads as to whether liking baseball is a prerequisite for liking this book. What made it interesting was that one reviewer who reported a lack of interest in baseball noted that she enjoyed the book regardless, whereas a different reviewer who stated that he does like baseball felt that you simply couldn't appreciate the book without an interest in baseball. Well, I'm about as far as it gets from a baseball fan and I can tell you that large chunks of this book completely passed me by. Descriptions of games, of which there were many, left me cold and I simply couldn't relate to baseball-related topics like training and such.
On to the characters. The central character, Henry, is a highly talented baseball player headed for a brilliant career when he loses his nerve and ends up spiraling downward. Henry has a complicated relationship with Mike Schwartz, his larger-than-life teammate who initially recruited Henry for the team and devoted himself obsessively to training Henry. Mike Schwartz is dating Pella, who is the daughter of the college president and has recently relocated to the campus to escape a failing marriage. The other two relevant characters are the college president himself and Owen, a student with whom he is having an affair, who also happens to be a player on the baseball team as well as Henry's roommate.
Well. I have to say that none of these characters particularly grabbed me. Maybe it was the audiobook reader's interpretive inflection, but Henry came across as mealy-mouthed and devoid of any personality. His initial determination to improve as a player didn't make him real to me, and later efforts to give him a semblance of personality and strength (the others see him as a leader! He's expressing anger now! He's sleeping with another character, which, incidentally, seemed kind of random) felt contrived in light of his generally wimpy and socially stunted response style.
I couldn't get into Mike Schwartz either. We meet him in the beginning of the book acting more like the coach than the actual coach, even though he's just a college freshman. He managed to recruit Henry, convince Henry's reluctant parents, arrange financial aid with the college, etc. it took some suspension of disbelief for me to imagine such a powerful college freshman. Learning of Mike's background and how he had to pull himself up by the bootstraps in various ways made Mike's persona less rather than more believable for me. Sure, needing to rely on yourself prematurely can make you a stronger person. But how much stronger? And what about the realistic vulnerabilities that this also engenders?
Mike then embarks on a course of action whose self-defeating nature is almost laughably obvious to the reader but somehow escapes him and is a dramatic epiphany to wise Pella. I don't have a lot to say about her; she just annoyed me but I can't articulate why. Maybe it was her weird and sudden confessionals which were supposed to be deep I guess but struck me as the kind of interactions that only take place in books. Owen, though different from Mike in many ways, seemed a similarly larger-than-life character; confident and unflappable beyond belief.
I also found it surprising that so many of the ball players (at least the ones the author wanted you to like) were closet intellectuals. Not that I think all jocks have to be dumb, but this was the other extreme. Finally, many of the relationships in the book really didn't work for me.
And yet, despite the baseball, despite my various other picky gripes, I listened to the whole thing and mostly followed the story (although my bursts of audiobook ADD grew both longer and more frequent toward the end). That's saying a lot. So I'm going to go ahead and give this 3 stars just for that....more
I tend to be a bit conflicted about putting a book on my "should've been shorter" shelf. I find myself wanting to label every book I dislike that way,I tend to be a bit conflicted about putting a book on my "should've been shorter" shelf. I find myself wanting to label every book I dislike that way, even ones that aren't inordinately long by an objective standard. In this case, I'm noting that this book should have been shorter even as I award it a four-star rating.
Theo, the book's main character, undergoes all sorts of painful transitions. He loses his mother in a tragic terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum and ends up in an informal foster care situation with a friend's family. This benign arrangement is disrupted when Theo's dysfunctional father surprisingly shows up to take Theo under his wing and move him to Las Vegas. Theo's life in Las Vegas deteriorates like a slow car accident as he meets a friend with a similarly troubled existence and the two get involved with drugs and alcohol. Theo then ends up back in New York, where he seems to be putting his life back together but is actually building a house of cards. At the center of these events is a painting Theo inadvertently stole from the museum explosion and is terrified will be discovered.
Toward the end, after the climactic events, the book got a little, I don't know, preachy? I guess what I mean is, obvious about its various existential themes as opposed to simply letting the reader make their own inferences. Still, Donna Tartt's writing is crisp and engaging, and the story remained gripping for the most part even as it meandered and got too long and draggy at various points. I kept reading, which is saying a lot for someone with my rapidly decreasing attention span. This book wasn't The Secret History, but then again, The Marriage Plot wasn't Middlesex either and I still appreciated it in its own right as a good book. Interesting plot, interesting characters and conflicts, good writing -- pretty much what I want from a novel....more
Not a perfect book, but Pessl gets points from me for ambition and creativity which take a readable three-star mystery up to a four. In this Life of PNot a perfect book, but Pessl gets points from me for ambition and creativity which take a readable three-star mystery up to a four. In this Life of Piesque novel, the reader wonders alongside the protagonist about what is real and what is not. Are the puzzling events connected by black magic and the devil? Or is there a far more mundane explanation? It's fitting that the story is about a journalist attempting to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding a reclusive, boundary-pushing filmmaker and his daughter's death. The filmmaker's dark films, both in their viewing and in their production, blur the line between fantasy and reality and so does this story.
Although I enjoyed the book I do think it should have been shorter. It was a long, sprawling novel and sometimes overreached itself, or at least my ability to keep everything straight. Still, I was impressed. Other goodreaders disagreed, but for me this was a four-star book....more
I'm giving this book four stars because it was a 500+ page book in Hebrew, and it managed to maintain my interest despite these two strikes against itI'm giving this book four stars because it was a 500+ page book in Hebrew, and it managed to maintain my interest despite these two strikes against it. With that said, there were some draggy parts and I did start to tire of it at times in the middle and toward the end. On the other hand, the story's themes were interesting and well-executed. So, four stars.
Several story lines converge with multiple viewpoints and timelines, a device about which I tend to be ambivalent. Sometimes it felt as if Nevo was copping out, creating an additional viewpoint here and there as a lazy way of telling us about a character as opposed to simply making the character sufficiently vivid for the reader to draw their own conclusions. But mostly I was able to forgive the many viewpoints.
Basically, this is the story of three individuals. Dori, a man in a loveless marriage with a troubled child who is on a quest to find his aging widowed father, last heard from in South America. Inbar, a young woman who is emotional and impulsive and has trouble keeping jobs and relationships, who also finds herself in South America and ends up helping Dori on his quest. And third, Lili, Inbar's grandmother who came to Israel illegally in prewar times, intending to meet up with her boyfriend but captivated by a charismatic figure she meets on the ship.
The main question of the book is, what do you do if you feel trapped in an imperfect situation? Do you make the best of it? Or do you leave and try to start over with something that seems more promising? That question is explored in two parallel spheres -- relationships, and leaving one homeland to try to create another, better one. Nevo did a great job of balancing storytelling with unpacking this theme.
On the other hand, as I said, the book was long and occasionally draggy. I don't know how much of that to blame on the fact that I was reading it in Hebrew.
Overall, though, this book was a decent choice for someone who, like me, wants to keep up their Hebrew reading. Despite the book's length, the story moved, the characters and relationships were interesting, and the themes were provocative. So far, after three books, Nevo is keeping his position as my favorite Israeli author....more
I will add my voice to many others on goodreads who rave about Kate Atkinson as a writer while feeling a little less sure of their reactions to this sI will add my voice to many others on goodreads who rave about Kate Atkinson as a writer while feeling a little less sure of their reactions to this somewhat confusing book.
As others have said, the main character Ursula's life is reminiscent of the movie "Groundhog Day" where she is repeatedly reincarnated after a variety of premature deaths with the opportunity to change the way things turn out. Although she is never really clear on what compels her to make different choices the next time around, she does eventually get things right and achieve more desirable results.
The good: as most seem to agree, the book is really, really well-written. The characters and interactions are vividly evoked, complex and believable. Although other authors have played with similar ideas (Richard Bach's "One" comes to mind, among others), it's interesting to see what Atkinson does with it and how Ursula's life (and the lives of her family members) changes as she makes different choices.
The bad: after a while, I just tired of the whole thing. I got tired of retreading the paces of Ursula's life, often lost track of which life I was reading about and worse, stopped caring. Maybe this was at least partly due to the audio format, which necessitated many abrupt starts, stops, and distractions for me within a narrative that was already chopped up, but following the various narrative threads became a challenge and not always a rewarding one. I stuck with it, and didn't terribly mind, but I can't say I loved it either; I started off more enthusiastic but found my energy waning. As a side point, I want to add that, having read a lot of Atkinson by now, I'm a little put off by her fixation on horrible deaths of small, helpless children. Not a favorite reading area of mine, and in this book it happened repeatedly, especially with Ursula's needing to be constantly reincarnated.
I might have liked this better in print than on audio, although it was certainly more pleasant and engaging than many other audiobooks I've listened to. Many people expressed confusion about what the point was. I'm not sure a novel needs to have a point, but I think the confusion reflects a certain dissatisfaction with the overall concept. I did have some confusion of my own as Ursula's various life do-overs were sometimes dictated by her choices and sometimes by other circumstances, so it wasn't clear whether this was about Ursula's being given the opportunity to rewrite, or Atkinson's.
My own feelings toward the book are pretty lukewarm overall. But I would say it's worth a go, just for the writing....more
A lot of work and brilliant thinking clearly went into this book, and I regret having to assign it a lukewarm 3-star rating. But it was simply too easA lot of work and brilliant thinking clearly went into this book, and I regret having to assign it a lukewarm 3-star rating. But it was simply too easy for me to put down and not particularly tempting to pick up, wisdom nuggets notwithstanding. I'm sure the problem is me, not the book, but I'm the one rating it so there you go.
This book, which read like a longwinded intellectual blog with years of wide-ranging posts, discussed the concept that many things in life (parenting, economics, and more) fall into the category of "antifragile." Whereas fragile items are delicate and can be threatened by random (uncontrolled/unpredicted) events, and robust items are unaffected by random events, antifragile items actually benefit from the unexpected and unplanned for. One simple example would be allowing kids to handle stressors independently as a means of learning coping skills and therefore becoming stronger (treating them as antifragile), as opposed to smoothing out the road for them (thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where the kid is assumed to be too fragile to handle stress, and the kid then internalizes and lives up to that expectation). Another example would be allowing the body to build resistance to germs (antifragility) rather than immediately blasting the germs with antibiotics so that the body doesn't develop this resistance. In so doing we then create antibiotic-resistant bacteria, i.e., strains of bacteria which are antifragile.
I wasn't sure I agreed with every point the author made. I sometimes felt he was being intellectually dishonest or overstating his case, or engaging in the same cherry-picking and other fallacies of which he so roundly accused others. He clearly had an agenda, or several (anti-academic, statistics remove you from the truth, etc., etc.), and was not presenting his views objectively although they were certainly provocative. Unfortunately it's hard to cite specific examples because the book was just so damn long that I can't even remember the details any more.
Hopefully the more intelligent goodreaders out there have thoughts on this book that are better formulated than mine. My main emotion at this point is relief at finally being finished with it....more
Iain Pears was recommended to me by a highly intelligent academic I know, someone whose opinion I respect when it comes to the intellectual. So I guesIain Pears was recommended to me by a highly intelligent academic I know, someone whose opinion I respect when it comes to the intellectual. So I guess it fits that I find his books to be high quality fiction that's excellent and sometimes just a little above my head.
I actually liked An Instance of the Fingerpost even better than the previous Iain Pears book I read, Stone's Fall, which I also found enjoyable and impressive and just a bit beyond me at times but not to the point where I couldn't appreciate the reading experience. In An Instance of the Fingerpost, we have four narratives of the same set of events. The first narrator hints that he may be unreliable by letting us know he's leaving out details he finds unimportant, but basically tells a cohesive story which includes a mysterious death. The second narrator casts doubt on the first narrator's version but also, increasingly, on his own. He is followed by a third narrator who does the same, and then a fourth who seems more reliable than the other three (though who knows, really?) and offers some astonishing revelations.
Kudos to Iain Pears for pulling off all of these unreliable narrators so masterfully, giving each one their own perspective and area of paranoia and egotism and building the reader's tension and curiosity throughout the book. This book may really deserve a five, and would probably get one from a more intelligent reader. Sadly, the book's length made things difficult for me as I didn't have the luxury of reading it in a few consecutive sittings which would have helped. By the time I started each subsequent narrative, my memories of the earlier ones had faded and it was harder to appreciate the unreliability as a result. Additionally, some of the developments felt above my head which also diminished my engagement at times.
Make no mistake, though -- this was a solid four-star read for me. Great story, flesh-and-blood characters, authentic sense of the times, and it kept my interest for 700 pages....more
I had an odd reaction to this book. I have so many criticisms, and yet I found it surprisingly engaging in spite of its flaws. I wouldn't quite give iI had an odd reaction to this book. I have so many criticisms, and yet I found it surprisingly engaging in spite of its flaws. I wouldn't quite give it three stars -- it was way too flawed for that -- but it's actually a high two, as opposed to a low two.
This is one of those chick lit family dramas, three generations of women in one dysfunctional family, multiple viewpoints, blah blah blah. I can't remember the last time I read a book like this and thought it was well done; they're usually in the three-star range for me at best. So there's the matriarch, crusty 80-year-old Alice Kelleher, a pretty unsympathetic character although her daughter Kathleen is worse -- what a nasty, self-righteous jerk. Kathleen picks terribly on her sister-in-law Anne Marie, who has spent decades being the perfect Stepford wife and is slowly unraveling. And then there's Kathleen's daughter, Maggie, who is really too stupid to live.
Everyone has some kind of a time bomb brewing, and of course the four women will eventually come together and discover each other's time bombs in one big family mess. Alice's is that she has willed her summer home to the church, not to her kids. Anne Marie's is that she has a secret crush on her neighbor's husband even as she strives to maintain the facade of her perfect marriage and family. I'm not sure what Kathleen's is, but in any case she comes into the picture because of Maggie's crisis. Maggie's crisis is probably the most dramatic -- she is single and secretly pregnant, having taken a chance because she was blindly in love with her boyfriend. Said boyfriend's jerkiness is incredibly obvious to just about everyone but Maggie (really, J. Courtney Sullivan should have given him a few redeeming features other than Maggie's lust for him; it would have made the story far more believable, not to mention interesting), who is willing to risk the pregnancy because she's sure things will work out with this guy. Sigh.
Anyway, the book is incredibly slow. Very heavy on detailed backstory without a whole lot happening in the present for most of the book. The characters, as mentioned, are unsympathetic and not very three-dimensional, for all of the author's attempts at fleshing them out by keeping the reader in backstory hell instead of moving the plot along. Anne Marie was probably the most believable character but even she often felt like the author was trying too hard to depict her as a trope (the increasingly resentful Stepford wife who needs to make everything look perfect in order to feel in control) as opposed to making her a complicated person.
So why did I keep listening, especially when for once I had other tempting audiobooks to choose from? Well, as my sister noted, there was a weird voyeuristic appeal to feeling like I was eavesdropping on someone else's family dysfunction. The gossip, the griping, the secret and not-so-secret resentments, the miscommunications, etc. -- most of the book wasn't particularly dramatic but it still resembled the experience of watching a soap opera in that sense, where you get caught up in other people's issues so you can briefly forget your own. Also, the audiobook reader was actually quite good -- very expressive and authentic-sounding in the voices of the various characters. While I can't say I'll miss this book now that I've finally finished it, it did kind of keep me company on my commute and distract me from my own stuff. I can't give it an enthusiastic recommendation, but it was okay, which I guess is what the two-star rating is meant to indicate....more
I was hoping this would be like a good Susan Isaacs book, something along the lines of Long Time No See or After allMeh. I was really hoping for more.
I was hoping this would be like a good Susan Isaacs book, something along the lines of Long Time No See or After all these years. Meaning yes, a light read with some romance and a happy ending, but also a mystery and unconventional main characters I'd actually meet, or would want to meet, in real life. I think Jennifer Crusie was trying for that effect and while I acknowledge some limited success, overall this book didn't make it for me.
We meet Nell, a beaten-down fortyish divorcee, who is applying for a job with Gabe's detective agency. Gabe is also fortyish and conveniently unattached, and the minute any peripheral character acquainted with both Nell and Gabe hears about the interview, he or she immediately predicts that Nell and Gabe will end up together. How about hitting me over the head a little more with that foreshadowing, Crusie? I mean, this is a romance novel after all. How could they not end up together? But sure, put the prediction into another three characters' mouths why don't you.
It does take a while for Nell and Gabe to end up together, which I guess was Crusie's attempt to avoid falling into total Harlequin territory. But once they do, that's it. The romance (and Nell and Gabe's intermittent catfighting which could only, of course, be solved by more romance) was straight out of any wish fulfillment drugstore novel. He's every woman's dream! And he thinks Nell is beautiful! As do lots of other guys, suddenly! (One of my pet peeves in these types of books -- the female author slipping into the male viewpoint only so she can put words into his mouth about how bowled over he is by the heroine). He's great! She's great! Even their fights are great! We can pretend they're not Mary Sues by giving them some charming quirks, but they're still Mary Sues.
The mystery seemed silly and over-the-top to me, as did the ridiculous dognapping episode. As another goodreads reviewer said, Nell suffers from serious bouts of TSTL -- too stupid to live. Some of the dumb stuff she gets away with is just ridiculous. I also agree with some reviewers who pointed out that there's a serious retro quality to this book -- the women's lack of independence seemed a bit anachronistic, although unfortunately I do know people who struggle with these issues so I don't want to come down too hard on that point.
I'm not such a snob that I can't enjoy a good chick lit novel. But for me, this was not a good chick lit novel.
Although I think this book would have worked better condensed into a long article, with only the most interesting anecdotes and insights and no fillerAlthough I think this book would have worked better condensed into a long article, with only the most interesting anecdotes and insights and no filler, I still found it undemanding, mostly enjoyable, and occasionally provocative -- kind of like a good friend.
Rachel Bertsche, a newcomer to Chicago, felt isolated and friendless. Too old to meet people at college, too young to meet them at Mommy & Me or preschool gatherings, there was simply no natural way for her to make friends in her new city. As a relative newcomer to my current place I can certainly relate, although admittedly Rachel seems to have a lot more time than I have (no kids) which may have made her more motivated to actively seek friendships. Rachel did something quite original and brave in my opinion. The way an anxious single might determinedly pursue a variety of avenues for meeting random guys in search of "The One," Rachel decided to go through all sorts of contortions -- friends of friends, websites, all kinds of networking ideas -- to meet 52 different new women over the course of a year in the hope that at least one might fill the role of "BFF."
I admired Rachel's courage, which was part of what kept me reading. As Rachel points out, people understand if you're direct about being single and wanting to meet the love of your life, but they're far less forgiving if you openly state that you're looking to make friends. What kind of a loser doesn't already have friends? What kind of a loser is so desperate that she would put herself out there like that? To her surprise, Rachel finds that the vast majority of women she meets are not losers, and tend to be just as open as she is to the possibility of making a new friend even if the chemistry with Rachel herself doesn't quite work. Her quest proves successful and enlightening as she comes away with some solid new friendships, even if she also realizes that becoming a BFF is a longer and more complex process. Throughout, Rachel shares some interesting ideas about friendship that she picks up both from her reading and from her own experience.
As I said, the book was a little too long for me and is really a 3-star read; I couldn't see giving it more stars. I wish I had found it on audio, because I think I would have appreciated it more as a diversion during monotonous tasks than as a read I actually had to sit down with. But it was certainly pleasant, and made me think a little more about my own social relationships....more
Hmmm. Fascinating concept. Copiously researched. Boring as all hell.
Okay, just kidding. A cheap effort to get the attention of all my on-line friends Hmmm. Fascinating concept. Copiously researched. Boring as all hell.
Okay, just kidding. A cheap effort to get the attention of all my on-line friends out there with whom I apparently have these illusory relationships (and, perhaps, feel pressure to serve up charming and witty sound bytes that I'm less compelled to do IRL). The book wasn't boring as all hell; it made some very interesting points at times. But there were certainly problems with the overall execution, and provocative though it was, I can't unreservedly recommend it as a fabulous read.
I started out devouring the first half of the book. Gradually I found myself skimming, then finally skipping to the second half which was far more relevant to my life. The first half of the book focuses on electronic toys which seem to be imbued with personalities of their own such as Tamagotchi, Furby, My Real Baby, etc. This was a trend which completely passed me by; I was too old for these toys when they came out and would never consider buying them for my children simply because I have this weird policy of not buying them any electronic toys (whole other story which I won't go into here).
The question of how it affects us and our view of relationships when toys give the illusion of having personalities and feelings can be fascinating. Unfortunately, though, the book got bogged down in endless examples of kids with their furbies and Tamagotchies which was ultimately highly repetitive. All of these kids were basically saying the same things: sometimes I feel like my toy is alive, sometimes I remember that it isn't, sometimes I feel overly responsible for my toy, sometimes I'm cruel to my toy, and variations thereof. In this chapter, we heard several kids say this about their furbies. And then, in the next chapter, we heard several kids say all the same things about My Real Baby. It got old, and I was feeling beaten over the head about a topic which was completely irrelevant to me in any case.
So I skipped to the second half, which suffered many of the same flaws but at least covered ground that was more personally relevant to me. Online relationships, social networking, confessional sites, etc. The author talked about the attraction of attachment without commitment, the illusion of intimacy provided by these relationships when in fact, you don't actually know these people and won't truly be there for each other in a real-life crisis, how texting and facebook updates are replacing face-to-face contact (although this was questionable considering that much of the described texting was about making appointments to get together) and certainly phone calls, woe is me, woe is me. It was interesting to read Turkle's points, even if they were a bit belabored, and to contemplate whether or not they held true for me and for people I know. I reacted a bit when she wrote about today's teenagers having grown up with parents texting while they pushed them on the swings; my oldest children are sixteen and fourteen and texting certainly wasn't around when they were kids so I don't know which teenagers she means. It's the teenagers of tomorrow who we have to be concerned about, I think. It's a picky thing, but it seemed to me as if Turkle's zeal to predict doom was getting her ahead of herself.
In truth, I'm as concerned about the effects of our digital world as anyone else. It was strange to me even several years back to see a family eating out in a restaurant with a child playing on his gameboy throughout the meal, although I wouldn't jump to conclusions because for all I know the child may have had some issue and this could have been the only way the family could eat in peace. So I do like the topic, and many of Turkle's ideas resonated with me at least as open questions if not clear conclusions. I just wish the book had been better....more
I suspect this may be a book my sister would like more than I did, although that's never a safe bet. This novel describes a circle of suburban neighboI suspect this may be a book my sister would like more than I did, although that's never a safe bet. This novel describes a circle of suburban neighbors -- Joe and Allison, a happy-seeming couple; Sam and Gloria, two lesbians adjusting now that their husbands have commandeered custody of their children; Dick and Dorothy, a stodgy couple with a self-righteous insistence on propriety; Jessalyn, who works as some kind of private call girl; the mysterious Sun family who talks to no one; and maybe one or two other people but I don't remember who. The catalyst for chaos on the block is the unexpected appearance of Joe's 17-year-old illegitimate daughter, 9 months pregnant. Joe and Allison's marriage is thrown into a tailspin; Sam annoys Gloria with her efforts to help Diana and Joe; Dick and Dorothy are horrified when Diana starts a relationship with their son Kevin, etc., etc. Little by little, we get to know the various characters in this story and their reactions to the chain of events set into motion by Diana's arrival.
This book was decently written but pretty bleak. The characters were certainly three-dimensional, which is nice, but no one was particularly likeable, not even well-intentioned Sam. I think it went on just a little too long, and I'm a little tired of books that paint suburban individuals as shallow, meaningless twits who live for gossip and not much else. It's decent, and I did give it three stars. I just didn't love it in spite of its good points....more
Eh. I don't know how much of my lukewarm reaction to blame on my life context at the time. I struggled to read this book during a seven-day stretch wiEh. I don't know how much of my lukewarm reaction to blame on my life context at the time. I struggled to read this book during a seven-day stretch with four kids home from school, no electricity, mile-long gas lines, etc. Not that I don't realize how lucky I was that things weren't worse for me in the aftermath of the serious storm we just experienced. But sticking strictly to the book, I think it may have required a more engaging read to provide me with the distraction I desperately needed. Or maybe it's a good thing that I didn't feel compelled to read this by (sorely inadequate) candlelight.
The author, an American-born Chinese woman (ABC, as she calls it), makes a nice comparison between her hybrid cultural identity and the uncertain origins of so-called Chinese cuisine in America. She explores the various aspects of the Chinese food we know and love -- soy sauce packets, Jews and Chinese food, whether Chinese individuals would recognize chop suey or General Tso's chicken, and many chapters on fortune cookies which admittedly got a bit tiresome for me -- their origins, their production, their distribution, who writes the fortunes, etc. This was one of those lightweight nonfiction reads that started out mildly entertaining and got old when I was only about 2/3 through.
It's possible I would have enjoyed this more had I been in a better mood when I read it, so I'm giving it three stars even though I think my reaction is probably more of a two. ...more
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