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Jun 30, 2011

Joey rated it:

I really, really loved and enjoyed this book. What a delightful, adorable read with wonderful characters be they human, tortoise or mouse! I was hooked right from the start and fell in love with Audrey (Oddly) Flowers and her father Walter and Uncle Thoby. I especially loved the author's unique writing style. A poignant story full of humour and wit that I found hard to put down. I got this from the library but I would not say no to owning this book and reading it again and again. ;)

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2011

Shannon rated it:

This book became one of my favourites of 2010, and if there's one book I would recommend to you right now, it would be this one. Quirky, clever, hilarious, original, poignant, touching, flat-out brilliant all comes to mind in describing Come, Thou Tortoise. It was a random purchase for me, bought on a whim - I didn't know anything about it but I've always loved tortoises and it sounded interesting. Only goes to show how spontaneous book buying, with no research, can reap great rewards!

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11 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2010

Jeannine rated it:

PUB. DATE: February 2010

GENRE: Literary Fiction

PLOT SUMMARY: Audrey grew up in St. John's Newfoundland but a brief romance led her to Portland, Oregon, where she is living when she finds out that her father has had a coma. She returns home in a hurry only to find out that her father has already died. She and her uncle, who has lived with her and her father since she was young, grieve the loss and try to put their lives back together. Also, Audrey inadvertently investig More...

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May 29, 2009

Ariel rated it:

The opening pages of Newfoundlander Jessica Grant's promising debut novel are disarming. Literally.

Audrey (aka Oddly) Flowers, terrified of flying to begin with, disarms an air marshal on a flight from her adopted Oregon back to her hometown of St. John's. She is going home because her beloved father has been bashed with a Christmas tree and is in a coma.

Next we learn that Audrey has left Winnifred, the titular tortoise that she inherited from an ex-boyfriend, back in Ore More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2010

Sooz rated it:

this is one odd little book.
and i mean that as a compliment.

i love that she loves corkscrews because they embrace the essence of both a ballerina and a weapon. think about it.

i love that she smells soap and runs to buy fudge.

i love that she knows snowflakes are prisms, and that she has a snowshovel that makes imprints of a flower with every load of snow she heaves from the sidewalk to the bank.

i love that the tortise gets a voice. i a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 03, 2010

LJ rated it:

I love this book! The narrators (Audrey and Winnifred) are hilarious, sweet, and real. They fear things that I fear, but more importantly, they rejoice in things I love - word play and puns :)

Although the subject matter is actually quite dark (all the more realistic for the majority of us), this book is full of mirth and had me laughing out loud in bed. Audrey's trials, though sometimes heart-wrenching, often end up with hilarious results. The case of the missing mouse (cheeky s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2010

Mrsgaskell rated it:

This is a quirky and offbeat novel about Audrey (Oddly) Flowers, a young woman in her early twenties (although only five or so counting by her leap day birthdays) who has a low IQ but is pretty sharp in some ways. She has been living in Oregon with her tortoise Winnifred, abandoned by her boyfriend Cliff, when she is summoned back to her St. John’s Newfoundland home because her father has been in an accident and is in a “comma” (coma). By the time she arrives her Uncle Thoby greets her with the More...

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Aug 12, 2010

Janet rated it:

One of the highlights of my summer reading so far, this book recounts the experiences of a young woman, Audrey, called back from the west coast (US) to Newfoundland when her father falls into a coma. She has to leave her tortoise, Winnifred, with friends and good chunks of the book revolve around her checking in with her friends about the tortoise, and her longing to be reunited with Winnifred. The remainder of the book involves Audrey's discoveries about her family in some very humorous ways. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 02, 2010

Debs rated it:

Dana bought me this book as a gift when he came to Toronto. I got so excited when I saw it on my night table because Dana has awesome taste in books. And CDs. I should buy him a book one of these days. Yes.

Anyway, this book completely endearing, as Dana said, and I'm glad I didn't figure out the ending before it happened. As I read it, I would inadvertently start thinking in jerky, awkward, discrete movements like Audrey does which was...interesting and had me blinking a lot. I'm More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Maria rated it:

You know when you come across a book at just the right moment, and the stars are aligned for your reading of it? This is what happened to me with this book. I was tired of being bogged down by sad or overly complicated or pretentious books. I was looking for something honest, and loveable and true. And I found all of that in this book.

Narrated half the time by a quirky heartbroken girl name Oddly Flowers, and the other half by her opinionated tortoise, the story tells of a girl come ho More...

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May 28, 2010

Kat rated it:

It's basically the story of a young woman (twenties?) who loses her father and has to come home to deal with it. It's told in flashbacks but also in the present. It's told from both her perspective and the perspective of her tortoise who she's left with friends while she goes and takes care of her father.

I really enjoyed this from the quirkiness (and it's very quirky) to the sort of strangely meandering plot to the characters who I sort of fell in love with. There were a few tense issu More...

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Jul 24, 2011

Neil rated it:

I am giving this book 4.25 stars out of 5 and rounding up. I thoroughly enjoyed the snappy, word warping dialogue told from the point of view of a person and a tortoise. The story and main character was like an Canadian, semi-androgynous and ageless version of Oscar Schell in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There was a lot of nice themes to consider throughout the book like air travel, bottomless ponds, affinity with nine volt batteries, and mice. I didn't feel like the mystery unraveled at More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 07, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

A wonderful read. I was engaged, from the start, by the characters - both real and imagined. Well, some more imagined than others I suppose. I found Jessica Grant's writing came from an interesting place usually left to the subconscious. She is aware of the minute details of the passage of time and the wild threads that play through our minds most often unchecked. These thoughts decorate the halls of our mind and impact our views, yet it takes sensitivity to look and see them. Idiosycracies, co More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 05, 2009

Tiana rated it:

When I first bought this I actually really bought it cuz it was on sale and it had a turtle on the cover, but the book ended up being alot more complicated and deep then it looks! This book was told in more tan one perspective. Firstly it was told in the perspective of Audrey Flowers. However there were a few chapters where her pet turtle had some insight. Despite how funny that sounds and all the humour thrown in the book you can go from laughing to having a tear in your eye. Audrey herself is More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2010

Danielle rated it:

I'm in love with this book. It was so unique and such a good story. I've read some reviews where they felt that Audrey's narration was annoying...but I thought it was great. I felt that I really knew the character through the quirky narration. It seemed to me that her quirkyness might have evolved out of some learning disability she has, but I loved the play on words and this kind of secret language that she had with her father and Uncle Thoby. I loved how the two of them encouraged Audrey's More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 30, 2011

Andrea added it

"Come, Thou Tortoise" is an endearing book told from a unique point of view, Audrey Flowers is a woman with a very low IQ but a sincere personality and a caring heart that keeps getting broken. Personally I could have done without the few chapters narrated by Audrey's tortoise but I must admit that the tortoise's perspective helped the plot along quite nicely. My main problem with this book, though, is that it really dragged in the middle, so that for a long time it seemed that the b More...

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Nov 29, 2010

Lana. rated it:

I also wouldn't say no to a tortoise. You probably would have difficulty refusing too when that tortoise is the sassy, intelligent, and powerful Winnifred.

Forced to live with a struggling thespian, Winnifred recounts better days, the ones spent travelling as a dashboard tortoise across the USA and living with current owner (tenant), Audrey Flowers. She was hastily dropped off when Audrey was called to return home (St. John's): Her father was in a coma.

Dealing with h More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2010

Rachel rated it:

I knew I had to read this book when I read the front flap:

Here's a bit of information about our heroine, Audrey Flowers, which may come in handy while reading this book:
- she applies the rules of the board game Clue to help her with many of life's quandries
- she's terminally afraid of flying
- she finds comfort in making lists, lots and lots of lists
- her tortoise, Winnifred, often ponders Shakespearean speeches and the nature of exponents

Set mostly More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

Nadia rated it:

There is a video I saw of Jessica Grant speaking of this book, and she says something to the effect of - the mysteries that the narrator (and main character, Audrey) is preoccupied with and trying to solve through the book are different than the ones the reader will be preoccupied with - and that, for me, sums up the beauty of this book.

First, the prose is fantastic in a way that makes you smile as you're reading, without realizing you're smiling. The wordplay and inside jokes and ra More...

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May 10, 2010

Corey rated it:

Grant keeps the plot running with effortless efficiency, somehow rooting its absurdities in reality. There is very little in the way of overt wackiness, and Grant's writing never becomes irritatingly coy or overbearing. Oddly and Winnifred are winning characters (Winnifred is given far less to do, but that's for the best), and Grant populates her pages with all sorts of endearing characters. Especially Uncle Thoby, a relative from England, holder of the family secrets and saddled with one arm lo More...

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Oct 06, 2011

caty rated it:

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

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Feb 08, 2011

Martha rated it:

Call me crazy, but I enjoy a plot. It doesn't have to be deep or life-changing, but a plot is required. You can imagine my joy when discovered that this book did, in fact, have a plot and it began on page 362. Apparently this book is listed as both humour and mystery, yet it was neither. Audrey spent a lot of the book reflecting on her life at 7 years old yet, when she wrote as an adult, her voice remained child-like. There was no character development. There were chapters where her pet tortoise More...

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Sep 04, 2011

Ruth rated it:

It would be hard not to love this book, in which the extremely motley crew of characters includes a tortoise, and a young woman aptly nicknamed Oddly who, in one of the book's first chapters, succeeds in disarming a federal marshal on a plane because he's not actually reading the book he's pretending to be reading. There are many layers to this one, including what constitutes family, what makes a place home, and how do we define intelligence. It's bursting with love and humour and acceptance, an More...

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Jul 12, 2011

Lorraine rated it:

A novel narrated by a tortoise and it's owner? Yep! Even a tortoise can tell a story (especially when it is hundreds of years old).
A tale of adventure including laughter and sadness is woven when Audrey leaves her tortoise in Oregon to go to back home to Canada to see her dad who has just had a terribly unfortunate accident on the streets of St. John's, Nfld. What occurs as she arrives though is anything but expected as she learns more about her past and the family secret everyone has been More...

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Nov 21, 2011

Mortalform rated it:

Read this book. Use each line like a climbing rope to pull your self further in. Twine Christmas lights around the rope for light and read on with a sense of wonder. For no one thinks like Oddly/Audrey and no one else could navigate you through her losses and her loves as she does. Her narrative voice is original and it makes this book. It makes it wonderfully.

I had forgotten that the brain has geography. The human brain in 1 400 cubic centimeteres of geography. More...

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Jun 27, 2011

Colin rated it:

Five pages in I thought rating this book honestly was going to be a personal challenge, because last year I employed a similar style of prose in a piece of my own. Should I rate up this book in support of someone I write like? Or do I vengefully rate it down for diluting the uniqueness of my work? (I've given up on total uniqueness. I think that can only happen if one writes what no one else would want to.)

In the end I gave this five stars because, above and beyond any personal bias More...

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Jun 25, 2011

Brian rated it:

I was completely charmed by the writing. The story of Oddly (Audrey) Flowers is crafted as well as I imagine one can do it. Jessica Grant knows how to entertain. How to tease. She knows that a function of humour (I actually laughed out loud) is to pave the way for pathos. She understands that without making her readers fall in love with her characters (if only I were 40 years younger), the story becomes inevitably mundane. She knits her plot like it was a game of Clue seemingly random, hap More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Peachy rated it:

Audrey 'Oddly' Flowers is not your typical young woman. When she's not driving through the western states searching for her rock climbing ex-boyfriend, with her adopted tortoise basking on the dashboard, she is literally climbing the walls of her apartment waiting for him to return. By day she mows lawns, while by night she's been known to fashion a castle for Winnifred, her lettuce-munching, slow-moving, shell-covered companion. Until she receives word that her father has fallen into a 'comm More...

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Nov 02, 2010

Bunxena rated it:

A very lovable book with an endearing protagonist. We join Audrey (Oddly) Flowers as she flies from Portland, Oregon, to her hometown of St. John's, Newfoundland, where her dear old dad is in a coma, and her life is about to change. The book is spent mostly with Audrey as she tries to come to grips with her new life and delves through her memories of the past. There are also interludes spoken by Winnifred, Audrey's tortoise, who has been left behind in Portland with friends of Audrey's.

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2011

Loretta rated it:

This was an odd read, for me, but that is perfectly fine and I ended up thoroughly charmed by this book.

Two unique voices: Audrey, aka 'Oddly', who is odd and strange in a way that most reviewers are calling 'quirky'. But she is also lovable and a very rich character; I just spent a bit too much time wondering if she was supposed to be autistic, maybe some asperger's? But the 'why' of her doesn't really matter, once you just accept that this is who is telling the story. It did mean More...

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