I know I'm a snob, but I can put aside those tendencies for a really good thriller. And this book started out This book started out with such promise.
I know I'm a snob, but I can put aside those tendencies for a really good thriller. And this book started out that way. It had a great premise, family dysfunction that was explored rather than glossed over, and dialogue that sounded not only sharp but real (many authors are lucky if they achieve just one of those goals in their dialogue). It was so readable at first. Then, the psychopathy just got to be over the top. With The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was somehow compelled to keep reading despite this. Here, I just got sick and tired of the whole torture thing.
Many other people really liked this, so don't take my word for it. I would actually be open to trying another of Karin Slaughter's books; she definitely has potential as an author and really had me hooked for a while there (and her other books have higher goodreads ratings than this one does, for what that's worth). But eventually, despite nearing the end, I just had to put this one down....more
Overrated and disappointing. Maybe I've just read too many WWII novels, but I don't get what everyone saw in this. I found the characters flat, the stOverrated and disappointing. Maybe I've just read too many WWII novels, but I don't get what everyone saw in this. I found the characters flat, the storyline dragged out, the prose unimpressive, and lots of deja vu to every other WWII novel I've read.
I might have liked this better had I read it at a less jaded stage of my life, but I was mostly just waiting for it to be over. I ended up doing a lot of skimming and am not sure if I can truly say I finished it. But to be honest, I don't really care....more
I was expecting to enjoy this a lot more than I did.
I know it's a classic, and has been recommended over and over by various readers. I was grabbed imI was expecting to enjoy this a lot more than I did.
I know it's a classic, and has been recommended over and over by various readers. I was grabbed immediately by the writing, which was beautiful throughout. Unfortunately, the book was a little too episodic for me -- I need more of a narrative arc, and this felt like a string of loosely connected incidents. I also felt very detached from the memoirist, and wished I could get to know her better. Apparently she was a wealthy baroness in the early part of the 20th century who ended up running a farm in Africa. How did this woman from a probably pampered background evolve into a brave, outdoorsy, hardworking woman who loved farming and Africa, learned Swahili so she could converse with the locals, and faced down lions and other wild animals? What was that transition like? I would have loved to hear more about that, and about her various thoughts and feelings beyond her love for Africa and the situational distress she felt during various incidents.
Some readers complained about the author's patronizing view of the "Natives," as she calls them. I feel that this is a little like calling The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn racist. The author was a product of her times, and actually relatively enlightened all things considered. Sure, her attitudes wouldn't fly in our social context, but we have to remember who she was and where she was coming from. In that sense, this book is valuable as a historical document giving you a lens into colonial Africa. Unfortunately, I wasn't reading this for its historical insights; I was hoping for a good story and a character with whom I could connect. I didn't feel I got either.
I can't give a well-written, informative book like this less than three stars, but I didn't enjoy it enough to give it more than that....more
Eh. I don't think I'm going to finish this. I've really OD'd on the "love letter to books" genre. I want to just enjoy books, not read about how much Eh. I don't think I'm going to finish this. I've really OD'd on the "love letter to books" genre. I want to just enjoy books, not read about how much other people enjoy them. And part of enjoying a book, for me, is a good story and interesting characters. As far as the former is concerned, this book seemed almost from the beginning to be treading well-worn Disney movie lines; I think I'm just too cynical for the sappy, heartwarming story of a down-on-his-luck curmudgeon who finds a new lease on life and becomes a nicer person when he is abruptly saddled with a lovable child. Characterization-wise, these characters were trying very hard to be quirky and original but were really just your usual Mary Sues. A.J., who's sad and cranky but understandably so because he's lost his perfect wife for whom he had a perfect love. Maya, a two-year-old who always manages the right two-syllable utterance at the right time so as to appear maximally cute and endearing. Lambiase, the kindly cop who is -- wait for it -- discovering a love for reading. Amelia, a publisher's rep with just the right degree of persistence, a heart of gold, and of course -- a love for books.
I'm not sure why, exactly, but this book failed to hold my interest.
Fictionalization of actual historical events and figures tends not to be my genre,I'm not sure why, exactly, but this book failed to hold my interest.
Fictionalization of actual historical events and figures tends not to be my genre, but I don't think that's what bothered me here. Typhoid Mary was an interesting figure to write about, and I know so little about her that I was okay with reading a novelization of her experience. It was certainly a sad one, as she was unfairly isolated for allegedly spreading Typhoid around. And the writing wasn't bad, and I definitely saw the author trying to evoke complex characters, relationships, and situations.
Maybe it just went on too long. It felt like there was a lot of filler, and something off-balance about the ratio of narrative to dialogue. It kind of reminded me of Blame in that way, where long narratives were interspersed with occasional short scenes, and the story kind of dragged. I also couldn't maintain my interest in Mary's poorly chosen romance, hard as the author tried to render the complex relationship.
I wonder if what I felt about this book, and perhaps about Blame, is that the pivotal event was not actually long enough to write a book about, and that the author then had to compensate by extending the main character's story with a lot of banalities. Come to think of it, the same thing happened with The Chaperone, and I think that that's in fact what bothered me about all of these books. My sense is that the author was captivated by a particularly provocative situation, milked it as long as she could, and then had only half a book that she had to somehow flesh out.
So unfortunately, not a read that I can personally recommend although others seem to have liked it better than I did....more
I so loved The Catcher in the Rye. If that makes me a cliche, so be it. It was a book that grabbed me and held me from beginningWhat a disappointment.
I so loved The Catcher in the Rye. If that makes me a cliche, so be it. It was a book that grabbed me and held me from beginning to end, and there was so much about it -- the existential themes that were all the more moving because they were interspersed with events of a day in the life of a teenage boy, and most of all for me, Holden as an unreliable narrator who, in his way, is every bit as "phoney" as the world he disparages.
It was the style of Franny and Zooey that put me off, and maybe caused me to miss things about the book that were actually profound. I just couldn't take all the mutual hectoring that seemed to comprise most, maybe all, of this book. Very little actually happened in this novel, and while I suppose the same could be said of The Catcher in the Rye, here the novel consisted entirely of talking heads. Were there deep ideas? Possibly, probably in fact, but the style was so off-putting for me that I missed the content. Where "Catcher" was told with a deceptive lightness at times and then took you by surprise with its profundity, here Salinger seemed to want to hit you over the head, or at least have his characters hit each other over the head. I also missed the unreliable narrator, which would have added a layer of depth and complexity but can really only work in a first-person novel.
I admit that I probably skimmed most of this book, and am hoping a good book club discussion will set me straight on it. But while there are exceptions, I think that reading is as much about enjoyment as it is about enlightenment and whatever enlightenment I might have experienced from this book was completely offset by what a chore it was for me to read it....more
While I think this is an author to watch, I felt a bit underwhelmed by this short story collection. I'm not sure if it's that I'm just not a short stoWhile I think this is an author to watch, I felt a bit underwhelmed by this short story collection. I'm not sure if it's that I'm just not a short story person, or if in fact there was something missing here.
The writing was good, and I did get a feel for many of the characters. Despite this, the stories didn't particularly grab me and I did not find any of them particularly memorable even shortly after I'd read them.
Pleasant enough to pass the time with, but not something that will stick with me....more
I won't rate this book, because I really didn't give it much of a chance. It has an incredibly high average goodreads rating based on a large number oI won't rate this book, because I really didn't give it much of a chance. It has an incredibly high average goodreads rating based on a large number of reviews, so clearly I'm in the minority here. But something about the writing just got on my nerves, and I just couldn't make myself keep wading through it.
It's a bit surprising, because I liked Necessary Lies. Sure, the writing was pedestrian but the story really kept me going. Not so here. Constant shifting between characters is always annoying to me, and it somehow felt like Chamberlain was way too eager to just tell her story rather than letting things unfold in a more gradual way.
I might have been able to get into this had I kept trying, but I just wasn't motivated....more
Eh. Life gets busier, and my perseverance wanes. I know a lot of people liked this book, but I lost interest. I think my main issue was that the charaEh. Life gets busier, and my perseverance wanes. I know a lot of people liked this book, but I lost interest. I think my main issue was that the characters felt like types rather than like people. Zophiel was so over-the-top villainous; Adela and her husband the typical young besotted lovers (and now that I read about the history of marriage, they seemed distractingly anachronistic to me in their slavish devotion to each other), another woman who was supposedly anxious to protect her secret made a slip that seemed incredibly dumb, etc., etc. Maybe at a more patient stage of my life I would have kept with this and come to like it, but at this point I'm giving up....more
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.
I'm not the right audience for this book. I'm not usually a fan of fantasy/magic realism or child narrators, and this book had both. It's also arguablI'm not the right audience for this book. I'm not usually a fan of fantasy/magic realism or child narrators, and this book had both. It's also arguable that I shouldn't be reviewing it, since my interest steadily faded as I was listening to it and I'm sure I missed a lot. So this review will reflect my feelings about fantasy more than it will reflect this book in particular.
There was a time when I had a higher tolerance for magic in books; in fact, tolerance may be an understatement -- I actually liked it. Was it childhood innocence? Less creative inhibition and greater willingness to suspend disbelief? I don't know, but somewhere along the line I lost it. As an adult these books don't usually work for me, even though I still try them occasionally (although peer pressure notwithstanding, I have no plans of ever reading Harry Potter). The Ocean at the End of the Lane falls into that adult fairy tale category, which generally ranges for me between Don't Breathe a Word (didn't like) and Among Others (better, but still not great).
I think one of the things I dislike about these books is the fact that the author is inventing all the rules. Problems will be created through fairies and their magic. These problems will then be solved through someone else's magic. The destructive fairy managed to enter our world through an inadvertently created loophole? Fear not -- the good guy's magic will find a similarly magical way to send the fairy back. The whole thing bores me. I prefer my problems messier and more complex, with situations operating according to familiar rules and far less solvable.
I know that my view might be seen as philistine, and that there's a whole appreciation out there for books which bend the rules of nature as giving us more insight into our own natural world. Unfortunately this doesn't work for me as a reader. My mind just doesn't bend that way.
This book's high rating gave me hope that it might be an exception for me. I'm giving it three stars because I actually appreciated some aspects of the story and found myself surprisingly engaged at times, at least initially. Surely all those other goodreaders saw something I missed. But if there's a book that will help me overcome my aversion to magic realism and child narrators (and I haven't completely given up on that possibility), this one isn't it....more
Eh. Just couldn't get into this one. Apparently it was one of the New York Times best books of the year. Go figure. The language and descriptions wereEh. Just couldn't get into this one. Apparently it was one of the New York Times best books of the year. Go figure. The language and descriptions were certainly artistic, but I couldn't handle the shifts back and forth between storylines, characters, settings, time periods, conversations, etc. I'm willing to work at getting into a book, but in this case I wasn't particularly motivated to do so....more
If I remember correctly, Cold Comfort Farm was satirizing some type of emotionally manipulative maudlin genre where by citified relatives end up movinIf I remember correctly, Cold Comfort Farm was satirizing some type of emotionally manipulative maudlin genre where by citified relatives end up moving in with their relatives on the farm and some sort of relationship utopia ensues. This book fits squarely into that targeted genre. I felt like Baldacci, who apparently has more expertise with writing cynical legal thrillers, was doing an ambitious but sorely misguided thing when he decided to pen this earnest, clearly meant to be heartwarming story. Kind of like Robin Williams sublimating his snarky humor and doing touchy-feely films.
I just couldn't get into this story of a young boy and girl who survive a car accident which kills their father and cripples their mother, sent to live with their grandmother in the Virginia Hills. Talk about flat characters. The boy and girl never whine or complain or misbehave in any way despite their trauma; although the girl ostensibly has a smart mouth, this felt less like an ingrained character trait and more like a device. The grandmother is classic salt-of-the-earth, complete with crusty exterior and heart of gold, unequivocally glad to take in the grandchildren she's hardly ever seen. And sure enough, the children take to their grandmother and to farming -- isn't it sweet?
Apparently there is a story here but I didn't have the patience to wait for it to develop. I did make it to Chapter 15, so I feel I gave the book a chance. But when an audiobook feels like an annoying background drone rather than like something I actually want to listen to, it's time to move on....more
Eh. At the risk of raising the ire of all those who contributed to this book's 4+-star average rating, this read like a Jodi Picoult wannabe.
Gripping Eh. At the risk of raising the ire of all those who contributed to this book's 4+-star average rating, this read like a Jodi Picoult wannabe.
Gripping medical/legal controversy complete with court battle? Check. Larger than life characters who all seem to have the same basic personality? Check. A family bitterly divided over what the right thing to do is? Check.
Not only that, but for all my ambivalence about Jodi Picoult as a writer, even I will admit that she does write a readable story if not a particularly literary one. This book seemed amateurish to me by comparison, pedestrian and clunky at times. I found the whole "letters from the dead" device, which is quickly becoming one of my least favorite author gimmicks, overdone and emotionally manipulative to the point of maudlin.
With all that said, the book did take on an interesting and little-explored (at least in my reading experience) scenario: Matt's wife, Elle, with whom he has been desperately trying to have a baby, is basically brain-dead due to an accident but they've just discovered she's two months pregnant. Do they keep her on life support so she can (possibly) deliver a healthy baby?
To add more wrinkles, Elle was traumatized by watching her mother struggle with a long, protracted death years earlier and has frequently expressed antipathy to being on life support. On the other hand, Elle has been equally vehement about wanting a baby.
Conveniently, Matt is a neurosurgeon. His mother (who wants Elle taken off life support) is a labor and delivery nurse. Everyone is perfectly situated for this situation, it seems. Moreover, Matt and Elle's families were neighbors and best friends growing up.
But wait, there's more. Aside from being beautiful, brilliant, and devoted to Matt and to her family, Elle is a famous astronaut. This was really a bit much for me. Bad enough that she was a Mary Sue in general, but how many of us can actually relate to an astronaut? This doesn't seem to have bothered other readers, but I really prefer my characters a bit more human and down-to-earth (sorry).
Anyway. I decided to give this three stars. I certainly didn't love it, and wasn't even all that compelled to pick it up. But it was a quick read about an interesting situation, I'll give it that. I didn't really dislike it enough to go below three stars. But it was pretty meh for me, even if everyone else on goodreads seems to disagree....more
I normally try to give a book at least 50 pages before abandoning it, but I couldn't do that here. It was obvious from the get-go that this book and II normally try to give a book at least 50 pages before abandoning it, but I couldn't do that here. It was obvious from the get-go that this book and I were not meant to be. Sorry, book -- it's not you, it's me.
Alice McDermott turns a lovely phrase. Her sentences are poetic and evocative. For many goodreaders, it seems, that's enough, or even more than enough. Not for me.
The few pages I read were highly disjointed, with abrupt and unexpected jumps back and forth in time for no apparent reason. I wasn't sure why I should be interested in Marie. Or her neighbor who dies. Or her poetry-reciting brother. I suppose there was a narrative arc somewhere. I didn't care to read long enough to find out.
I didn't think Charming Billy was all that great either, and I seem to be in the minority there too. This was a similar experience. I can appreciate great writing, but I need a reason to care about the characters and/or their storyline. This book gave me neither....more
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
This may be a good book for someone else but not for me.
It's an interesting premise -- one person creates a female golem while another unleashes a malThis may be a good book for someone else but not for me.
It's an interesting premise -- one person creates a female golem while another unleashes a male jinni; the two humanoid creatures end up in early immigrant lower Manhattan and grapple individually with what it means to be part of the human race; eventually they meet; etc., etc. Both the golem and the jinni are human yet not human, powerful yet subservient...you get the picture.
Unfortunately I'm not a magic realism person and although I've occasionally been able to overcome that aversion, even happily (e.g., The Night Circus), I wasn't able to with this book. The writing and characterization didn't grab me; the story was exceedingly slow; the whole thing felt to me like the author was so excited about this creative premise that she didn't bother to create much of a plot. I decided not to shelve it as "situation not a story" because I understand from others' reviews that there is some action eventually, around the last 100 pages or so. Unfortunately, around page 200 I simply didn't feel motivated to keep picking it up....more
The goodreads reviews suggested that this book is a cut above, and at first I had that impression as well. I enjoyed Marisa Silver's writing and, unliThe goodreads reviews suggested that this book is a cut above, and at first I had that impression as well. I enjoyed Marisa Silver's writing and, unlike many other reviewers, actually enjoyed Walker's narrative and was hoping to learn more about his life, his relationship with his children, his work as a professor of social history, etc.
When the narrative switched to Mary Coin herself, the character many reviewers seemed to prefer, the book slowly started to lose its momentum for me. Mary didn't grab me as a character, and I kind of felt like she was plodding the well-worn plotlines of many a historical fiction heroine before her. Lusting after a guy despite the fact that she lives in a time when women aren't supposed to have those feelings (for some reason this trope of Harlequin romances seems to appear in pretentious literary fiction far more than I would expect). Getting pregnant. Marrying the guy. Having kids. One hardship after another. By page 82, I just didn't care any more. When two books I'd had on hold at the library came in, I decided that life is too short and my reading time for non-professional books too scarce and precious.
This book seems to have worked for a lot of goodreaders whose opinions I respect, but it just didn't work for me....more
I recognize that this is a classic, and that my failure to fully appreciate it may be a function of me rather than of the book.
I once read a blog posI recognize that this is a classic, and that my failure to fully appreciate it may be a function of me rather than of the book.
I once read a blog post which stated that in order to be successful, you need to either be first or be best. I wonder if this book's success lies in the fact that it may have been the first to explore some fascinating concepts. Because I don't think it was the best. The premise is interesting and provocative, and many of the moments of insight are compelling. But the story suffers in the telling.
I'm generally not a fan of multiple viewpoints, and that was something that really didn't work for me here. Who was telling this story? And who was it actually about? The story is framed as a series of letters from Walton, a sailor on a hapless sea expedition. Walton is pretty much a non-character to me, a boring guy detailing his boring sea experience who seems to merely be an excuse to introduce the next narrative (and to tie up loose ends later). The next storyteller is scientist Victor Frankenstein, who is a bit more interesting as a character and whose narrative forms the basis of the story. Frankenstein describes his passionate curiosity about science culminating in his creation of a nameless humanoid creature. Repulsed by the ugliness of his creation, Frankenstein quickly abandons him and runs away.
The narrative up to this point feels a bit rushed, if anything; the events kind of happen, boom boom boom, without a whole lot of contemplation or reflection. Later, though, the narrative slows down and meanders over far less interesting territory, travelogues and such. In the middle, Frankenstein's monster takes over the narrative and shares his own account of events that happened to him, events which require a great deal of suspension of disbelief as he picks up language and even reading without any direct instruction or interaction.
Who was this story about? Clearly not Walton, so what was he doing there? Why not just have Frankenstein and his monster, since that's where the interest is? And did we really need to hear all about Frankenstein's wanderings with Clerval? I would have wanted more on his decision to create, and then abandon, the monster and less on the Swiss scenery. The multiple narratives included some which were superfluous, and even the ones which were necessary could have been more seamlessly integrated.
With that said, I do want to say some good things about the book. There were a lot of provocative themes here. The hubris of science, and the degree to which we are, or aren't, responsible for the results of our experiments. Our natural reaction to ugliness and how unfair that is (I was reminded of "Autobiography of a Face," which was a more moving read for me on this theme). The pain of isolation, and the behavior that can result from that pain and from misguided efforts to solicit interaction at any price. And it was impressive that Mary Shelley wrote this as a teenager.
So once again, great premise, disappointing execution. It should be a good book club discussion, though....more
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