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Aug 19, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers will know that I maintain about as liberal a review policy here at CCLaP as I possibly can; specifically, that I promise to review any book that any author bothers to take the time to send to me, even self-published ones, and in fact to give it the same thousand-word sometime More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2008

C.B. rated it:

Surreality Rewind
by C.B. Smith

Fear is palpable, darkness looming; the netherworld of the darkness never sleeps. Beatie Scareli indeed has her hands full. An abusive father, a mother slowly slipping into Schizophrenia, a twelve year old girl hanging on for the terror trip as her world collapses, bring us face to face with a most unforgiving tableau. Emotional and physical abuse run rampant, while implications of sex, molestation, and potential rape are perceptively on the More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

Amanda rated it:

I have finished the book. And it's yet another dark/twised book written by a GoodReader!!! (I'm beginning to think that you people were born of the same womb and perhaps need group regressive hypnosis to cure you of your dark and twisty ways, but what do I know...)

Beatie is a girl who you never really get to know. A girl who sort of slips through your day with little more than glance at best and a quick and quirky lie to your face at worst. We see snippets of a life. Is this how More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Eddie rated it:

My heart aches for Beatie Scareli. There is so much sadness within and beneath and between every minimal description and absurdly matter of fact line of dialogue. I constantly look for stories that will instantly absorb me the way Ginetta Correli's "The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli" has. I feel every word, see every scene and smell every description. I have so much respect for writers who can create so much with so little. There seems to be magic in the placement of the words, in th More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2009

Garrett rated it:

The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli is a book that takes more risks than the rest of its genre.Your average lit fic bildungsroman depicts reality in a plotcentric realist mode that contradicts the frequent "the journey is its own reward" message or wishes to use the inner strength of heroine's going through a childhood hell to inspire in an Oprah books mode. Ginnetta Correli has written a book that would give Oprah pause. The adult world is ugly and nobody wishes to help. There is no g More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Brandon rated it:

Correli's book is a dark, wild novel that shows great ambition. A very impressive book. It's insanely original, at times humorous, at times disturbing. Highly recommended. I look forward to seeing what Correli does next.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2008

Ben rated it:

Both terribly upsetting and terribly engaging, this book is crazy good, with the emphasis on the crazy and the good.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2009

Stuart rated it:

A Hauntingly Disturbing Tale – Surrealism at its Best

Ginnetta Correli’s, ‘The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli’ is a uniquely crafted tale of a young girl living in a highly dysfunctional family, traveling through life’s extremes. We follow 12-year-old, Beatie Scareli as she faces many of today’s most horrific situations, abuse, undiagnosed mental illness, alcoholism as she attempts to unravel and solve her dire circumstances. The author has masterfully created the story as a televisi More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 29, 2009

Indigo rated it:

Ginnetta Correli's writing is poignant without that forced, "overdone" feel so prevalent in many of today's books. This story of a teenage girl with an abusive father and a schizophrenic mother navigating through life in the 70's is subtle--which, ironically, is the very reason why it's so powerful. Truly unique. I couldn't put it down.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Robert rated it:

I cannot get the humanity of this story out of my mind. The author allows the reader to form vivid images of each scene by a simple turn of suggestion leading to complexity. Reminds me of Vonnegut. I did not feel the book lacking as far as editing is concerned it should stay the way it is.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 10, 2008

Stephanie rated it:

Beatie is a girl that could be recognized by everyone yet seen by no one. Told in a unique television-script fashion, the book is an easy read yet characterizes the many layers we all as human beings possess. Beatie's story is a sad one but one that is all too common in the world we live in today. The story not only exemplies a girl's desire to be loved and accepted, but also examines the ways in which people choose to ignore situations and not get involved if it's going to interfere with their More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Kasia rated it:

The seemingly bizarre world of Beatie Scareli can easily sync with that of the girl who sits next to me on the bus, with a friend or coworker, it can be anyone's reality, fantasy and fiction, strange and every day, surreal and real at the same time. California in the seventies has never been familiar to me since it was before my time and I have never been to the west coast but Beatie and her family, her home, school and hang outs were bright and clear in my head. The story line seems to resemble More...

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Nov 24, 2008

KrisT rated it:

In my mind I see the scene board ready to snap when action is called and the camera peers into the next glimpse of Beatie Scareli's life. Sometimes the camera pans in very close to the heart of what makes up this 14 year old girls family. On a good day the scene is sad and depressing watching a schizophrenic mother, a drunken step-father and an abusive real father. I can't imagine the reality of such scenes but this story makes it so you can't look away.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 11, 2011

J rated it:

A review of Ginetta Correli's "the Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli", by J de Salvo

"The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli" is the kind of book I love to hate, yet it's a book I love. It is -sigh- a coming of age story.

I love to hate coming of age stories. There are far too many of them, first of all, and secondly one always gets the feeling that the author is making that sloppy, common mistake which David Foster Wallace called " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 23, 2011

Robert rated it:

Ginnetta Correli, The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli (Mushroom Press, 2008)

The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli is one of those titles I had heard about on the fringes of various groups I hang out on the fringes of, in the odd google alert, etc., for a few years, with enough frequency that I figured I would have to sit down and read it eventually. I have an ebook version of it, and when I found myself caught out one day with a two-hour wait, having just finished off Jordan Krall's Fist More...

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Oct 02, 2008

Tracey marked it as to-read

I won this through Good Reads giveaways!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Jill marked it as to-read

Sounds a little like Murakami

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2011

Ken rated it:

Full points to Ginnetta Correli. The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli could have fallen flat on its face with what story-wise is well-trod ground: a coming-of-age tale of a teenage girl. But her bent, the life of the misfortunate title-character as told in a series of vignettes that play more like episodes from a warped sitcom, is original, gritty, raw, and heartbreaking. It is growing-up story as an open wound.

The best example of this is when Beatie’s mom, convinced that she is Lucy More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Brad rated it:

I finished reading two works of intense beauty today, and their content couldn't be more different.

They left me sad, feeling those hollow places that are always inside me, wondering what could have been if I hadn't experienced an unrequited relationship like Tom Hansen's love for Summer, or if the abuse I'd suffered as a boy had been coupled with a mad mother who kept me always on the edge of chaos.

500 Days of Summer and The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli are different. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 07, 2010

Matt rated it:

No experienced reader will be able to get past the reality that the author failed to consult an editor about an otherwise excellent manuscript. Every page is littered with misspellings, atrocious punctuation and broken sentence structure. It's not even done as a regional dialect. And don't give me the 'it's written from a 12 year-old's perspective' crap. In music terms: this could've been a great album if the musician cared enough about their audience to tune their instruments.

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Dec 07, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I liked this book. It was a quick, sad read and I wanted to finish it in one sitting to see what would happen. The only thing that I found disappointing is that the back cover says that the story is told from two perspectives, and I never got that. I only had Beatie's perspective and it was good, but I kept waiting to see the story from the the woman's lens that was supposedly watching this on tv. Perhaps I mis-read something? Overall, I liked it.

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Apr 09, 2009

Rhonda rated it:

This is an interesting book with just enough typos in it for me to suspect it is self-published. It tells the story of a seriously messed up family and a similarly damaged girl. It's a quick read and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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Nov 13, 2008

Walter added it

Being experimental --- style wise it's a bold synthesis of playwriting and movie script ---this novel is a quick read.
However, Beatie, an adolescent girl who is coming of age in a pathological family, sears herself into one's consciousness until the reader is rooting for her to ... survive? overcome? find meaning?

Beatie's ability to accept outrages that might crush others (and often catalyze similar memories in the reader) implies an inner strength of which she is not yet aware More...

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Jan 03, 2010

Cynthia added it

Review in Fort Polk Guardian, Aug. 8, 2008

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 01, 2009

Corey rated it:

Correli hits all the bases in this marvelous novel, which often uses dialogue to drive the narrative. At times funny, at times harrowing, it at all times connects with the reader, and that is no small accomplishment.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 19, 2008

Ann rated it:

Dark humor. Episodes (journal entries) about a how a young girl copes while living with her schizophrenic mother and abusive father.
Depressed by the time I finished the book.

0 comments like

Mar 08, 2011

Amy rated it:

Eccentric book to say the least. Terrible grammatical and spelling errors that made me cringe. Overall, it was a quick, interesting read.

0 comments like

Feb 02, 2012

Megan marked it as to-read

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Jan 24, 2012

Carol marked it as to-read

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Jan 01, 2012

Becky marked it as to-read

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