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Jul 28, 2010

Lisa rated it:

There's a wonderful passage in Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" in which Anne sends a manuscript off to an editor, who rejects it with this withering rejoinder: "You have made the mistake of thinking that everything that has happened to you is interesting."

That pretty much sums this one up.

9 comments like (43 people liked it)

May 30, 2008

Anne rated it:

This one falls into the "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover" category - I thought the cover art and title were very promising. Even the subject matter appealed to me - the story of a debutante growing up in South Carolina and her relationships with her fellow society girls and their quest to find suitable husbands. Of course, I expected it to be light, but mostly it was just disappointing. There were glimmers of humor and good writing - but many of the issues were dead-ends. The main char More...

8 comments like (28 people liked it)

May 23, 2008

Tracy rated it:

Waste of an afternoon. I really wanted to like this book, and I did in the beginning. The author just left way too much hanging. She goes into detail, getting you involved with characters, and then never mentions them again. Poorly written, with a horrible ending. Totally unbelievable ending. Wierd.

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

May 17, 2008

Deb rated it:

The beautiful cover pulled me into this one which started out pretty well. Sarah Walters is raised to be a debutante and a member of the Camellia Society. She's pretty likeable until she goes off to college. Things change for her ALOT then and into the future. Indiscriminate sex, bondage, a drug addicted friend, single motherhood due to a practically unknown father, and a mother coming out of the closet all are issues almost gratuitously thrown into the plot. It was a quick read, though. I rea More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2008

Imogen rated it:

Look, the only reason I don't have a bunch of Kathy Acker tattoos is that I'm broke, and that's also the only reason I don't collect Dennis Cooper first editions. The only two reasons I don't talk about liking Chuck Palahniuk are the anti-intellectual implications of joining The Cult and the fact that, often, his books are stupid. I also prefer novels about zombie apocalypses to books about most other things.

I still think Melissa Bank should be canonized. She is a goddam GENIUS and I More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2008

fleegan rated it:

The back cover lies about how funny it is. But humor isn't everything, and I could've over looked it's unhumorousness if I could've at LEAST liked the main character, Sarah. She was pathetic, and then, when she gets older and knows that she's pathetic and remains pathetic? Well, I don't like that.

Plus I didn't like how these important things would happen in the book, for example, her sister goes off to college and is going to marry some guy from Madagascar who is kind of abusive and More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

Betsy rated it:

This past Sunday's SF Chronicle review did a very good job of summing up some of my qualms as well as some of the better parts of this book. The fact that the narrative voice changes part way through from 1st to 3rd to 2nd person is jarring. Parts of the novel felt like a cluster of connected short stories. As the SF Chron reviewer aptly pointed out, the story about Annie and her boyfriend and the dog was the best writing in the book. I kept reading because I still wanted to know what would happ More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2008

Molly rated it:

I liked this book for all of its southern references; the author is from charleston and was really good at picking up tiny details that seemed very southern, and very accurate to me. there were definitely a couple of sentences or ideas where I was like, 'yeah!'. but the story was depressing, and disjointed. Each chapter was from different (usually chronological) periods of the protagonist's life, from preteens to early thirties, but sometimes they left off where I wished she would have continued More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 08, 2008

Pam rated it:

I thought this book was highly over rated and poorly written. Not at all what I expected it to be. There were moments when the author's humor shone through and those sections were good; however, the book never really went anywhere.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 07, 2008

Lisa rated it:

I can't decide whether to give this two stars or three. I enjoyed the book, but have several issues with it. The narrating style was inconsistent and kept changing. Chapters skipped around in time, which was confusing, and important events weren't always explained. The main character -- Sarah Walters -- wasn't entirely likeable. I kept waiting for her to grow up. And the end was kind of ruined by a huge dose of Sarah's cynicism - you'll have to read it to see what I mean!

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

*SO* disappointing. I was really, really, looking forward to reading this book. The level of disconnect between the book summary and the actual plot is so huge that I'm tempted to believe that someone just made up the summary based on a third-hand description of the book. When a book is billed as being having "more gasps, sobs, laughs, and surprises in [its] pages than in most people's entire bookshelves", then I expect it to deliver! Instead, I got depressing tripe.

The plo More...

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

nicole rated it:

debutantes in bad relationships. so boring. plus, some really annoying devices like a middle chapter in which the main character is written about entirely as "the girl" and random paragraph where the author addresses the reader directly. but just in that one paragraph, at least in what i read of this.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2008

Erin rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Bob rated it:

Well-crafted novel narrated by an ex-debutante from South Carolina. It's not quite coming-of-age, because the story arcs the narrator into her 30's--although that fact itself demonstrates lots about the story: the narrator never really achieves a self-definition except after 20 years, and then by default rather than bold choices. To the extent that the character is similarly, passively developed, this novel fails. On the other hand, perhaps it is a statement about the generation, the south, o More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2009

Sarav rated it:

Let me first say that I am not a "literary reader." I think that I would have enjoyed this book more, if I was.
For me, this book is the epitome of "don't judge a book by its cover."
I was so disappointed. The cover is gorgeous! The photo spoke to me of a heroine who was not going to suffer fools gladly. I also love trucks and thought she would be tough and tomboyish and fun. She was none of these things. The author describes her (in the interview in the back) a More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 03, 2008

Danny rated it:

I read all of Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch today. I began it while waiting for my mom and sister to get here, and finished it after they left. I am not an especially quick reader, so this should tell you that the book is either a quick read, or thoroughly compelling. Maybe a little of both?

Most succinctly, it was a book that made me feel like a teenager.

The protagonist, Sarah Walters, is an imperfect person for whom things do not ever seem to go right. She's rebe More...