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Dec 24, 2008

H rated it:

It seems you really like Julia Glass or you really don't, judging from other reviews. I fall into the really likes group. I inhaled this book, a series of snapshots told alternately by two sisters. I find Glass's characters believable and layered, and her short story-like style suits my taste. It helps that this book is about one of the themes I find most fascinating - the inability to really live outside ourselves and understand others as more than who they are in relation to ourselves, and More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2008

Jen rated it:

This book was very, very disappointing. I enjoyed both her previous books immensely, but I just couldn't go where this book was trying to take me. Firstly, the book is set up almost like a collection of connected short stories, and I'm not really a fan of short stories, so perhaps that's why my initial reaction wasn't positive. But I stuck with it and began to find myself invested in this tale of two sisters, even though the prose seemed mostly distant and cold...and then the book takes this rad More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

This is why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The cover and title seemed very interesting to me, but this book was anything but. From the very start of this book, I just found it dull and I couldn't get into it. Though it did get a little more interesting around the midway point, it was still nothing captivating. I found the writing to be a little erratic, like the author was just moving from one event to the other, disregarding anything else - I felt the same with the two sisters relatio More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2008

LARRY rated it:

As posted in [http://www.amazon.com]:

I really tried to like this book since it was written by Julia Glass. I've heard so much about Glass and "The Three Junes". However, I just could not connect to this story.

*I See You Everywhere* is about 2 sisters, who have grown apart through the years. Yet, they remain in touch or even visit, especially during tragic events. Louisa, the elder sister, is the stable one with a rooted job and a consistent love interest. Chem, More...

7 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2010

Emily rated it:

I appreciated how this book honestly portrayed the complexity of relationships between sisters. Rather than presenting sisters who are best friends, who talk all of the time, etc., this book delves into the ups and downs, jealousies, regrets, and love/hate behaviors that characterize most sibling relationships over the course of a lifetime. The book begins in 1980, when Clem and Louisa are in their 20s, and spans the course of 25 years (chapters jump ahead one, five, and 10 years). Each chapters More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Liza rated it:

I loved Three Junes so so much, that I've wanted to love everything else JG has written. This novel isn't as awful as her second one, but it is also disappointing in a similar way: it feels naive and pat. Although compelling enough that I finished it, and very occasionally touching, mostly it's facile and simplistic in its descriptions and themes of "nature" "science" and "wild animals", and the characters seem too credulous, their lives ingenuously perfect--even in More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 25, 2008

Miriam rated it:

I read this in two days. I really adore Julia Glass' writing style.It's so smooth and full of beauty. I was surprised to see that the pieces in the book had originally been published as stories in other places, because they feel so cohesive. The only peeve I have with it, which is why it doesn't get 5 stars is that the first chapter has these really annoying POV shifts between the two sisters, both are in first person and the name of one of the characters is, bothersomely, Clement. So it is real More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2011

Knitme23 rated it:

This really should go between "really liked it" and "it was amazing". Glass did a lovely job with this book, developing two characters through several long chapters/interlinked stories and making me care about both of them, softening the pricklier character realistically and beautifully, and creating an ending both possible and surprising at the same time. She simply does people well, with the same warmth that Barbara Kingsolver has when she describes her characters. I highly More...

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Aug 30, 2011

Charity rated it:

I was thrilled when I saw this book at the library, and snatched it up. This was one of the first books I borrowed with my NYPL library card, and is definitely a worthy book. This book is incredible- once again, Julia Glass manages to bring such depth to her characters. This time around, her main characters are two sisters who have almost nothing in common except for the fact that they are related and they love each other. This book alternates between the sisters’ point of views and spans over a More...

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Jun 09, 2010

Denise rated it:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 stars for this moving novel about the connection between sisters..., November 18, 2009

This review is from: I See You Everywhere (Hardcover)
This is a convoluted but well-written novel about the nature of a relationship between sisters and the capriciousness of life.

Two sisters -- as dissimilar as "chocolate and seaweed" -- grow up and go their separate ways into adulthood. One sister works in the promotion and critique of art and t More...

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May 26, 2010

Stephanie rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2010

Belinda rated it:

I really liked Julia Glass's first two novels -- the characters touched me, the storylines were engaging. However, something went terribly awry with this book. It's like Julia was kidnapped by Jodi Picoult, spoonfed some kind of noxious character-withering pablum, and then released to finish up this book while still in some state of disorientation.

This is to say, "I See You Everywhere" was churning along OK until one horrible twist in the storyline. You've had this happen, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

S rated it:

I had really liked Julia Glass's first book "Three Junes" so when I saw this book on the shelf of my local library (which by the way is where I get ALL my books), I enthusiastically grabbed it. This is the author's third novel and I had not heard anything about it.

The story is about the relationship between two very different sisters each told in their own voices over the course of twenty years. This intrigued me and I thought it would be a study on how sisters can be diff More...

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Aug 26, 2009

Evelyn rated it:

I'm a sucker for Julia Glass, though I do think her books are really just high-end chick lit. But her writing is so clear and simple, and ultimately so engaging. And though I've found her books uneven (really liked Three Junes, wasn't all that impressed with The Whole World Over), I generally walk away satisfied, or at worst, entertained. Her writing reminds me in some way of Laurie Colwin. Perhaps it's that Glass (like Colwin) writes mostly about urban, well educated, financially secure (ok sec More...

1 comment like

Jul 13, 2009

Linda rated it:

In her novel Julia Glass explores the lives and the interrelationship of two sisters over a period of twenty years, picking up the story when the two women are in their early twenties. Chapters alternate between the first person voice of each sister, capturing the point of view of Louisa and Clem, as the author fleshes out the character and growth of each of the sisters, each woman choosing totally different lifestyles and yet the bond of sisterhood and connective thread remains.

I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2009

Pam rated it:

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May 25, 2009

Christine rated it:

The best indicator of a good writer is someone who upon telling a story can cause the reader to suspend belief that the characters who inhabit the book are mere fiction. For me, “I See You Everywhere” did just that. I can honestly say that at one point while reading the book, I actually began to cry, and I can’t remember the last time a book had that impact on me! It may not have the same driving emotional force on everyone, but Glass’s powerful storytelling will engage you and deliver.

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 04, 2009

Jane rated it:

This was a choice for our local book club, so I dutifully read it. I'm not sure it's one I would have been wild about reading if it were not for the necessity of doing so. Author Glass has some good moments (she's an award winner for a previous book that I have not yet read), but at times the writing seemed a bit "clunky" to me, and after awhile, the vast numbers of Clem's boyfriends became hard to keep track of. Clem and her older sister, Louisa, make their way through life with Cl More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2009

Jill rated it:

I liked "Three Junes" when I read it, but couldn't finish "The Whole World Over." Halfway through "I See You Everywhere" I started skimming, and stopped reading altogether when I got to, oh, the twist.

The vignette format was jarring and it was often not apparent which sister was narrating which story. While the dates assigned to the vignettes suggested that the sisters were aging, they never seemed to actually learn anything or gain any insight into them More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2010

Diane rated it:

I was waiting for this to come out in paperback because I loved Julia Glass's Three Junes . . . and then when it did, I almost couldn't bring myself to buy the edition because of the totally creepy photograph of the two girls with their hair braided together. As a mother of identical twins, maybe I'm overly sensitive to ideas about two people being perceived as one but having read it now, the creepy picture doesn't fit the story anyway.
It is not about overly bonded sisters; it's about com More...

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Aug 19, 2008

Joe rated it:

Just sublime. Once again, Julia Glass has taken me into the world she has created. A world at once familiar and at the same time, somehow more focused, sharper emotionally. This novel, the intertwining stories of two sisters, Clem and Louisa, is written in each of their voices as they tell their stories. Julia Glass has a way of laying out the plot naturally, in heartbreaking vistas and subtle nearly-missed revelations. This is a must-read from a powerful writer.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2009

Jo rated it:

The author chose to write this book in the viewpoint of both sisters. Louisa has a passion for art and Clem the same passion as a guardian of wildlife. Ordinarily, I find reading a book that has more than one viewpoint very confusing and disjointed. However, Julia Glass manages to pull this technique off. The viewpoints are separated into segments and Glass mentions the other sister in the first couple of paragraphs so you know which character you are following.
The first third of the boo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 25, 2009

Ladan rated it:

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Dec 26, 2008

Michelle rated it:

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Jun 01, 2010

Kristin (Kritters Ramblings) rated it:

What a book! A powerful and insight book into the struggles between sisters. Being a half of a sister pair, I am the older one, but our lives and roles have changed throughout the years - even by the week. We have each had to take a back burner to the other in our parents eyes when our lives have been up or down. We have shared in the joy and the pain of each other's life circumstances. I believe that sisters challenge each other more than any other relationship out there - you fight to be on to More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 14, 2009

Jess rated it:

The format it intriguing, switching back and forth between two sisters over the years, but it took me a few sections to figure out what was going on. We get each sister's perspective on a certain point in time, each moment has well-drawn minor characters and usually a strong sense of setting, and Louisa and Clem both manage to be sympathetic and flawed at the same time. But then we jump forward in time, and we rarely meet those characters again, and things are often left unresolved from one po More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Eric added it

I picked this up as soon as I saw it in the bookstore; her first novel ("Three Junes") is one of my all-time favorites, and I'll read pretty much anything she writes. After I finished the book, I read the New York Times review, and was surprised by all the reader comments and how negative they were. "Nothing happened," "soooo boring," etc. I couldn't disagree more. This is a fascinating portrait of two sisters, written in both their voices. I've since learned t More...

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Nov 09, 2010

Laura rated it:

What did I think? Good question. I finished this today. Normally I will give myself a couple of days at least to ponder what I want to say on this site about a story. This is another one of my book rental club selections. Once again I find myself wondering why I wanted to read this. My best answer to this quandary is that this is a story about the relationship between two sisters. I have two sisters and I think coming from that personal experience I was curious to see what this author had More...

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Jan 19, 2009

Anne rated it:

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Jul 04, 2011

Moira rated it:

I can go with a tremendous amount of unlikeable bones of a novel by Julia Glass because I am so in awe of her writing abilties. She makes every single character and setting, no matter how small, real. However, this whole does not hang together as well as its parts.

This book was not my favorite for its erratic format. She set up a string of unbelievely lovel vignettes of life but the overall lives she ennunicates don’t come through strongly enough tcarry the whole. In Three Junes she w More...

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