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Dec 17, 2007

Deborah rated it:

Here's what I'm learning about myself:

I despise po' country lit written by women.

Is that terrible? Does that make me a bad feminist?

In Country? Hated it. All these poor white trash stories about kids growin' up harder n' poorer than those other kids over there, wearing ugly clothes, and having lots of scrap metal in the yard...

...yeah I just can't deal.

Because these stories never GO anywhere. It just sounds like a lot of whining thro More...

3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Marsha rated it:

This is the story of a white trash girl named Ruth, her white trash mother and her white trash boyfriend/husband with bad teeth. It was very difficult to make it through this book because I didn't like any of the characters--they were stagnant and annoying throughout. Ruth had great potential but never realized any of it. A bad story was made even worse when about 4/5 of the way through, there was suddenly a horrific and bloody scene that took about 4 pages of graphic descriptions. I was caught More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Laurel rated it:

I should have known better. I really should have. First, it was an Oprah book club pick, and second, it won some Hemingway writing award. I always find Oprah's picks terribly dark and I despise Hemingway. Sorry to all the Hemingway fans out there. BUT, on the back cover a review said the book was very "Dickensonian" and another said it had quirky off-beat characters in the vein of Anne Tyler--two authors that I happen to love, so I gave it whirl.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. I loa More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

deLille rated it:

I finally finished this book which has been on my "could-not-finish" shelf for ages. What can I say... it is a lyrical book with beautiful prose, but the subject matter is extremely depressing and it never lifts itself up. It's like Hamilton has never heard the term "comic relief". I loved Jane Hamilton's "A Map of the World" and "A Short History of a Prince", but this book made me weary of Hamilton's metaphor-a-minute writing and her continuous dwellin More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2008

Ann rated it:

people complain about ruth being "white trash," but i think they are missing the whole point - putting yourself in a world not your own. i grew to adore ruth as i experienced her small-town world. i found her ability to daydream and fantasize intelligent and mesmerizing. people also complain about the ending - let me just say that while it is harsh, it is an eye opening juxtaposition between hum-drum and madness.

6 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2007

Lauren rated it:

This book was a huge dissapointment. The reader is forced to listen to the story of a woman who leads an unhappy and meaningless life. Throughout the eventless book you keep waiting for something to occur to make reason of the narrator's purpose in life, but instead find out that she is simply a pathetic and unhappy person. In the last few pages a huge twist occurs, but it is simply too late to indulge the reader, and is to much to take into too short of an amount of time. The only thing stoppin More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Lisa rated it:

This book is quite sad but has an amazing voice. The protagonist, Ruth, was never encouraged to do much with her life and has always been told she was not quite that bright. However, she has some incredible insights into human nature and her story is very barebones. Hamilton writes Ruth in such a way that her thoughts about the world are those that many of us have but never reveal because of social custom. Ruth's ideas are often right on and her "alleged" stupidity allows her to state More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2011

Anne rated it:

It was well-written and psychologically astute. Painfully insightful about the characters and human nature. However, I usually gloss over 'challenging' books in favor of fluff. My life and work are challenging enough. By the end of the day, I'm ready to sit down with a book and let my mind roam while talking animals adventure with irreverent wizards.

The only time I end up tackling thoughtful modern literature is when I'm sick in bed; too sick to make it to the public library, w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 09, 2008

John rated it:

We were assigned this book as part of a writing course, with the intention that the instructor would have us read a few chapters per week, for us to discuss the author's use of craft. Our first discussion opened with the group unanimously loathing the book so much that it was never brought up again. I read it to the end to see if things got better - they did not, a tedious downer to the final sentence.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Michelle rated it:

This is Jane Hamilton's first novel and it is a whopper. It's the story of a small-town girl and her struggles with growing up with a mother who's lost any compassion or sweetness and a brother she can't relate to. This girl, Ruth, despite an intelligence that she's unaware of and so is everyone else, ends up marrying a dangerous, drug-riddled fellow. Throughout the story, which lags at times in Ruth's simple cadence, there are bits of foreshadowing of some life-changing, terrible day. So you ke More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2009

Jean rated it:

This book seemed entertaining and satisfying at first. Now I'm getting bogged down. The narrator has some horror to disclose, but getting to it involves a lot of anecdote and flashback but no real cohesive story. Grr! It makes me tense.

I looked for the one you just read, Sara, but the PL library didn't have it--or someone had checked it out.

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 05, 2007

rockle rated it:

Didn't really care for this book, but didn't hate it either. Not sure that I would recommend it. One of the reviewers of this book called it "a sly and wistful ... human comedy" and another said the "small-town characters are ... appealingly offbeat and brushed with grace" but I wonder if those reviewers read the same book that I did. I found the novel dispiriting, depressing, and rather boring. Perhaps if this was part of a series, and we could also hear others' stories (May More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Shannon rated it:

I loved this book! It is written in a very unsophisticated tone, as compared to "A Map of the World." It is a wonderful book about a girl who makes her way in the world, completely unsupported by her family, with the exception of an aunt who lives out of town. The small town in which the main character lives is very nostalgic to many of us who were raised in similar places. The main character grows to become what she hates the most, her mother. The ending is as dramatic as they com More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 10, 2008

Eliza rated it:

I had to read this book in college (for a sociology class), and we had to write a paper where we personally identified with one of the characters in the book. I remember sitting with two of my friends, laughing hysterically, while we tried to figure out how to identify with these characters- they are either horribly evil or tragically victimized (there was no in-between). In the end, we all made up stories about abusive mothers or repressed memories. I would love to find that paper and read i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 02, 2009

Lynn rated it:

This book has had wonderful reviews and is on Oprah's list but I struggled through it the same way I struggled through Hamilton's Map of the World. The entire time I was reading this book I was filled with dread (which means the author is an effective writer) but I was left feeling washed up by the end.

The book makes an excellent case for the notion that poverty and violence create a self-perpetuating culture. But she gives no hope of escape. I believe that people can move beyon More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

emi rated it:

I absolutely loved the story that main character Ruth tells about her pathetic family in rural Illinois, I can't believe this was the author Jane Hamilton's first novel, it's brilliant and made me laugh and gasp in horror too. Ruth's mother May had a hard life - her first husband and love of her life was killed at war, her brilliant son Matt never returned her love, her second husband abandoned her, she's alienated her entire family, and as far as she's concerned her daughter Ruth can't do anyt More...

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Sep 08, 2011

Fabian rated it:

After all last month in the company of, how can I put this delicately, white trash (with the insupportable Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom) I got my hands on this: another American Family tragedy. As much as I loathe Norman Rockwell portraits, inversely I adore AmFamTs. Andre Dubus III, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth…they are always welcomed in my bookshelf. This, a “first novel” seems like a breeze to read since its protagonist is, according to those that surround her, “slow.” Theme and form are the sa More...

0 comments like

Jun 27, 2011

Christina rated it:

I am really surprised by all of the negative reviews of this book. I think it is so strange that the characters are discounted as "white trash", their story thus, uninteresting or too dreary. While the story is by no means a happy one it is highly engrossing and worth telling. Hamilton's narrator Ruth is by turns despairing and joyful of life and Hamilton's writing manages to be lyrical and poetic, blunt and simple at the same time. I personally like to connect with other people, to im More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 12, 2010

Jack7609 rated it:

i guess this was one of the first Oprah Book Club books. it was ok– very sad.

here is a summary from Google:

The country folk in Hamilton’s first novel lead plain, hard, impoverished lives–on a good day. When things get bad, there’s brutality, bestiality, and no small amount of bloodshed. These are the same raw ingredients used by Flannery O’Connor and Carolyn Chute, but Hamilton does not share their sharp, tragicomic vision. Her rural Illinois characters are blunted by the More...

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Dec 30, 2009

Andrew rated it:

I gave this book four stars, but I can't say I actually enjoyed it. I turned the pages out of a compulsive voyeurism, the way one might stick one's ear against the wall to eavesdrop on the dysfunctional family next door. It's not that you enjoy hearing the domestic violence break out--the screams, the profanity, the smashing of hurled glassware. You just can't bring yourself to turn away, let alone turn up your own radio to drown it out. Shhh. Quiet! They're at it again!

I agree More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 18, 2009

Alcornell rated it:

The blurb on the book ends accurately with "you wince with pain for confused but fundamentally good Ruth as she walks a dead-end path. The book ends with the prospect of redemption, thank goodness--but the tale is nevertheless much more bitter than sweet." Ruth is every abused, lonely girl who wants her mother to love her in some loving way. This makes her path torturous, and heart-rending..hard to read, or tolerate.

It's impossible to understand why or how an abused chil More...

0 comments like

Oct 06, 2011

Ruth rated it:

i originally bought this book for vanity (if you notice the title and my name, you'll understand).. i didn't know this was an oprah thingy book til i read the reviews.. but it didn't change my feelings for this book.. i love love love it! it's pure genius written in prose.. the story has good flow and easy to understand.. unlike some, i actually loved the language used to write the story.. i loved how jane hamilton shows the difference of each characters through the language they choose to speak More...

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Nov 12, 2009

Addy rated it:

I had no idea what this book was about because it had no front flap and nothing on the back of it, so I merely chose it for the title. It's about a girl named Ruth, her mother May who works hard at washing dishes and her brother Matt, who has all the attention he could ever want from his mother, May, and who desperately wants to get away, and does, with his mathematical genius skills. Ruth hears about how she is not that pretty and May is constantly telling her what to do and how to do it. She More...

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May 11, 2008

Jodie rated it:

This is one of my all-time favorite books. It's a book that changes one's perspective on people and walking a mile in other's shoes before judging. Did your school have one or two or maybe more kids that were just "off" -- easy targets for bullies and even kids who usually seemed nice? In this book the main character's name isn't even mentioned until the end because she's someone who is constantly minimized ... or even worse, unnoticed.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 31, 2009

Nancy rated it:

This is the story of a girl to woman in a small town in Illinois. She is compared to her smarter older brother (familiar to me!) by her abusive mother. Just out of high school and working at the dry cleaner with her mother, May, Ruth marries Ruby and has a baby. They all live together in May's house. Aunt Sid, May's sister, lives in Chicago is is Ruth's pen pal and, in some ways, the only person, besides Ruby, who really believes in Ruth.

The story is told completely from Ruth's More...

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May 08, 2010

Christina rated it:

Oprah's Book Club! Hemingway award winner! Should be fantastic, right?

Well, it is very well written. Certainly it is a very in depth story of the life of a woman growing up poor in the rural midwest in the 60s and 70s. The characters are very well fleshed out for better and (mostly) worst and the main character does a fine job herself at connecting the dots from one generation to another and seeing how their lives were all intertwined. For that quality of the writing and character de More...

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Feb 06, 2009

Judy rated it:

This book was on Oprah's list in 1996. It's a painful story at best, about life in a tiny Illinois town in the 1960's and 1970's. Ruth grows up as the daughter of May and the sister of Matt. May is uneducated and angry with the world, and verbally and emotionally abusive. Ruth's brother Matt is brilliant in math and lives almost a parallel but separate existence, and eventually moves away, leaving his old life behind, never looking back. Ruth marries a broken down young man, not much good fo More...

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Jul 24, 2009

Shana rated it:

I only read this book for a Book Club....and I ended up not even going to the meeting cause I couldn't finish the book. It was just sooooo painstaking to read about such respressed people and their depressing lives. I almost convinced myself to quit, but since I always finish a book I start I mustered the energy to find out what happens to Ruth. Which I found to be absolutely exasperating because nothing worth reading ever happens to her!

Now, put all of that above aside for a moment More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Jessica rated it:

This book was depressing. It was somewhat annoying at some parts when the action slowed and the characters were shining in all their ignorant glory. At other times when the action was moving along it was slightly shocking and disturbing. I think I finished it on principal, but was really looking for a bible connection also, even though it never seemed to come.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 09, 2009

Annie rated it:

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

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