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Apr 19, 2011

Sarah rated it:

I wasn't expecting to like this book. I'm into dreamy romanticism, not "wry humor," not stark, unadorned realism. But, I love this book.

I love the cynical, obviously (but not stereotypically) autistic narrator. I love the metaphors and archetypes. I love the astute commentary on prejudice, on relationships, on the rigidity of social norms. I even love the photograph of Elizabeth McCracken, looking nervous and awkward, with frizzy hair and red, sullen lips. (Not like the pri More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2008

Diana rated it:

"Space is the chief problem. Books are a bad family-there are those you love, and those you are indifferent o; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren; and endless brothers-in-law simply taking up space who you wish you could send straight to hell. Except you can't, for the the most part. You must house them and make them comfortable and worry about them when they go More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

I am addicted. From the moment I began reading (I'm only on page 35), I was hooked. Lock, stock and barrel. Wow! Perhaps it's the time of year. Perhaps it's the stunning freshness of style, compassion for her topic, perception of life, dexterous use of metaphor, imagery, irony and humor. I underline, annotate, circle on and on her aphorism, truths about single women, truths about librarians, truths about favorite patrons and the need to be needed. The need to impart, share, and advise patr More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2008

Jenna rated it:

What I like about this book: untraditional love story; love and loss; tragedy; loneliness; social outcasts.

A young librarian's sympathy for an 11-year-old boy with giantism turns into an earnest love. At the heart of the story is the concept that we each have our afflictions---some more obvious than others (giantism vs shyness)---but all impact lives equally.

For me, I am especially touched by this; I suppose this is a result of working with people with both mental an More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Von rated it:

This is still one of my top 5 favorite books of all time. Elizabeth McCracken's style of writing is really beautiful. She has an unapologetic way of presenting a person's deepest innermost flaws, while simultaneously giving you every opportunity to fall in love with them. I fell in love with the main characters in this book, over and over again. I gave this book to a friend and bought myself another copy, which I've referred repeatedly. I don't know that I plan to read it again, but I can't imag More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jul 25, 2011

Adriane rated it:

I’m not usually one for romance, but Elizabeth McCracken’s gently lyric and humorous writing won me over in The Giant’s House. Set in beautiful Cape Cod in the 1950’s, her protagonist, a spinsterish librarian in her twenties, falls in love with a boy, James, who he is no mere boy. He is seven feet tall (and still growing), handsome and shy, and loves to read. They bond over Dewey’s decimal system as she learns to cull only the best books from her collection to suit his interests, but the exac More...

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Sep 14, 2009

Molly rated it:

Though my friend Tom recommended The Giant’s House ages ago, I just got around to reading it this past weekend. I’m so glad I did. Elizabeth McCraken excels at rich character development and sentences so beautifully constructed that I read them over and over. Though the cover calls the book a romance, I would deem it a tale of unique friendship.

At the heart of the story are Peggy, a pessimistic librarian, and James, a boy growing ever taller. While Peggy obsessively solves James’ phy More...

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Aug 27, 2009

Susan rated it:

Elizabeth McCraken spins a magical tale of romance in The Giant's House. In some ways it's believeable and in other ways it seems like a fairy tale. The main characters are James, who begins as a very tall boy and grows to a man of 8' 6" and his librarian friend, Peggy. Peggy, 14 years James' senior, first befriends a young James when he becomes a regular library patron. And while almost everyone who comes in contact with James (outside his family) thinks of him as a giant, Peggy sees him a More...

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Nov 15, 2008

Alison rated it:

While the book is undeniably well-written, I couldn't like the main character much. A lonely woman who falls in love with the young giant James Sweatt when he is eleven (!) failed to capture my sympathy. The book just seemed to be missing some spark of life, its passion seeming narrow and melancholy. It didn't help that Peggy makes it clear early on that James isn't going to survive. And the ending seemed purely unnecessary and improbable.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2010

M rated it:

I debated between three and four stars for several days. I've tried to use the GoodReads rating system "per book" and not have on a rating for one book relate to a rating for another book, since 1-5 is a narrow rating scale. Thus, not all threes are equal. For certain, not all fives are equal.

This book is very well written and I underlined many phrases and sentences that I want to revisit. I usually note the page numbers of passages I want to note; when I finish reading t More...

8 comments like

Apr 27, 2009

Ben rated it:

Elizabeth McCracken has a sincere love of sentences, and one need only read the first paragraph of The Giant's House to understand how the romance of this book is grammatically based. Admittedly, something out of the ordinary would have to be going on to keep most readers engrossed in a budding romance between a young boy with gigantism and a pseudo-spinster librarian; at first, I had dreams I was in for a gender/height-bending redux on Lolita... Nevertheless, the narrative turned far more chic More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2011

Tanya rated it:

This is a weird story. I read it a few summers ago and the story has stuck with me simply because it is so unusual. The reason I even read it was because I was vacationing on Cape Cod which is where the story is set. However, Cape Cod really has little to do with the story line. The story is about a librarian who falls in love with a giant. He's younger than her (and it is a bit creeptown that she's so drawn to a child at first). As he gets older they develop an unsual relationship but, of cours More...

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Dec 04, 2009

Karalee rated it:

This book is beautifully written and the story is heartbreaking (but in a wonderful way). The narrator of the story is Peggy Cort, the librarian in a small New England town. When she is 25, she meets and befriends an 11-year-old boy named James who suffers from gigantism (he is 6 foot 2 at age 11). James and Peggy ultimately form a very close friendship and pseudo-love affair, which is complicated by the difference in their ages but mostly by the physical and emotional problems associated wit More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 14, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I have mixed feelings about this book. It was entertaining, and I really liked the author's writing style (use of words). But I didn't like the main character. And while the author says it's a romance, it certainly didn't feel like a romance to me.

While the main character says she's in love with "the giant", it seems to me more like motherly love than romantic love. I know there is a huge age difference, but it still seemed like a very odd sort of love. If she truly ha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 20, 2011

Rachel rated it:

Dear Peggy, I did not have fun in your head. Let's not do this again. Sincerely, Rachel.

If you have been searching high and low for a book that tells the unfulfilling love story between a morose librarian and a boy with gigantism half her age who she's known since he was 12, then LOOK NO FURTHER. And, as you can see from my rating, the librarian is not the only person who left this book unfulfilled.

I don't want to hate on this book too much, though, because it's really u More...

0 comments like

May 12, 2011

Leigh rated it:

The narrator is quite possibly the closest thing to hearing myself talk that I've read in literature. That, alone, endeared this book to me. Despite its odd plot, the book evoked intense empathy for James, the giant. I held nothing but sympathy for, admiration of, and kinship with Peggy. Perhaps because I've worked in a library, myself, I found myself laughing at similar situations I'd run into and phrases I remember saying to patrons.

The story also has the best first line of nearly an More...

4 comments like

Jan 09, 2010

KrisAnne rated it:

Some excellent writing, a lovely sense of place (sleepy Cape Cod), and an interesting conceit, but because the narrator/main character makes such a huge, continuous stink about being unlovable, I found myself not liking her very much. As with Jane Hamilton's Disobedience, the last book I read with a first-person narrative obsessively focused on another person with whom the narrator fails to fully engage, it was at times difficult for me to stay interested: I can dig a long secret or carrying a t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 22, 2010

Heather rated it:

After I finished _The Giant's House_ I pulled it to my chest for a long moment. It's that kind of book.

I pulled Elizabeth McCracken's first book of my list of "Books to Read, You Know, Someday" because I was intrigued by the story and because I thought it might make a good jumping off point for a theater piece.

But a couple of chapters in I was so drawn into the emotional world of Peggy Cort, the librarian in a small Massachusetts town who tells the story. She had me More...

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Feb 08, 2010

Carly rated it:

I found this to be an engaging story. As the pages turned, there were no times when I had to stop and think - oh! What does that mean, anyway? The author laid the story out in a chronological manner, with no reason for the reader to have special knowledge of any particular part of the world, its people, its cultures, politics or social mores.

It was refreshing to read something with straight-forward, ordinary characters everyone could identify with.

There was a young giant, More...

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May 01, 2009

Virginia rated it:

Often times it seems like the writers who can create the best sentences don't create the best stories, and that writers who have extraordinary stories, don't necessarily have the craft down. McCracken manages both, though it is her writing, more than her characters, that stays with me.

That said, the writing does make me whole-heartedly believe in McCracken's characters, specifically Peggy, the narrator. Her voice never strays and I never found myself questioning her actions. I may no More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

May 28, 2008

Gianna rated it:

If you are one of those readers who love to underline your books, to highlight incredible prose...this is the book for you. Also a perfect book for book groups. One of my all time favorite reads.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

Ginny rated it:

I picked this book to read because I read somewhere that an author I liked (can’t remember which one) recommended it as a great love story - a favorite of theirs. It was also a National Book Award finalist. How bad could it be? Well, after forcing myself to finish this book, I can honestly say it was one of the strangest stories I’ve read. In my opinion, it is definitely not a romance story. The love was one sided and oddly inappropriate. The main character is a thirty something librarian More...

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Dec 09, 2008

Shanda rated it:

This book get three stars because it was such a different kind of romance that I am used to reading. A spinster librarian falls in love with a boy about 15 years younger than her who is a giant - over 8 feet tall and growing.

The book was pretty slow for the first half - almost 100 pages of Peggy dwelling on her lonely life and hopeless love for a boy so young. When James is finally old enough, the few pages of them expressing their love in such awkward ways is very sweet.
More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

Nancy rated it:

well, this was very different. The two main characters, Peggy, a 25 year old librarian, and James, a boy of eleven, she meets in the library of this small, tourist town of Cape Cod in 1950. Their lives intertwine. James never stops growing. I had never thought about that we basically stop growing although we continue to change. So that was an interesting part of this book; thinking about what it is like to be a giant. The book's perspective is in Peggy's head. There isn't much action, yet I coul More...

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Jan 03, 2012

Jen rated it:

This started off as a quirky little book that I was enjoying. However, as the author went on, it started to fall apart for me. It felt too contemporary, even though it was set in the 1950s. I had a terrible time believing Peggy. She was cold, distant, nosy and off-putting. I really wanted her to be accessible and likeable, but she wasn't, and that frustrated me. Additionally, for all the talk about James (Jim), I felt as though the author was keeping him at arm's length. Probably intentional, so More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Notcathy rated it:

Cathy has written, "sad in a corny, self-pitying way, and limited. Not for nothing is she compared to Tyler and Irving on the back cover."

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2011

Valerie rated it:

I was excited to read "The Giant's House", because it was recommended by a professor I really like. However, I was a little disappointed. The story is well-written, but I did not find myself connecting with ANY of the characters in the book, so it left me feeling unmoved as the story goes on. Peggy Cort, the librarian, is a strange narrator and she seems to be trying to alienate her readers. This is definitely a melancholy book, with a few strange twists. I liked it, and might recomme More...

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Aug 01, 2008

Katie rated it:

A nice book that kept me reading and made me want to be a librarian...briefly.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Wendy rated it:

I recently had the odd experience of having someone recommend a book to me, and realizing after reading a few chapters that I had read the book before. The book was well-written but not quite memorable (at least to my aging brain).

The Giant's House is unlikely to be such a book. It's quite an unforgettable premise, and McCracken's writing is divine. At first I waffled on giving five stars, reserving this rating for books I admire for craft and connect with on an emotional level, b More...

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Mar 30, 2009

Lawrence rated it:

What a voice Ms. McCracken created! In this excellent first person novel, the narrator is laugh-out-loud funny and quick and creative with language. But also, amidst her humor, the narrator is utterly truthful about herself and her growing love. She becomes more and more open as she is drawn out of her confined and comfortable life, and her openness leads to her power to provide truthful and kind narrations of the lives of others that love. As a small woman, in stature and habits, she painfu More...

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