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May 24, 2011

Ellie rated it:

So far I'm having a really hard time reading this book....which is very diappointing because I was soo looking forward to spending my Christmas vacation getting lost in this award-winner.....I am intrigued....I do want to know the story behind what I am reading....I just find it awkward and hard to follow...I keep having to go back and find out if this part is taking place in Canada or the States...if this is taking place in the present or it's already happened and she's re-telling it or remembe More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

Hal rated it:

Loud Raspberries for Johanna Skibsrud´s The Sentimentalists, winner of this year´s Giller Prize. (1) The Giller prize award for Canadian literary excellence has been given this year at best for quirky reasons be it the author’s unusual name, the boutique printing press - Gaspereau printing it or the fact that the committee consists of, believe it, just three people with their faddist tastes - Well, they have succeeded in at least scaring me away from any of their future recommendations. (2) The More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Kristine added it

What a trippy book! Skibsrud writes at the end of the book that even not fully knowing or understanding her father's experiences in Vietnam they still impact her life. I think her character may have been genetically impacted by all the weed her father smoked while in Vietnam. Skibsrud is obviously gifted. Generally I do like poetically writing (Anne Michaels comes to mind), and there are some passages in this book that really blow you away. But there's a little too much - despite the title More...

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Jul 13, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

The writing in this book is absolutely beautiful, frequently poetic in describing the mundane. The story plays with time and place as the narrator attempts to piece together enough information to make it possible for her to understand her father. A number of devices run through the story, most notably a town that's underwater due to a river being dammed up, and a wooden boat that was decades in the making, as well as a strange and cobbled-together house that was the narrator's childhood home. More...

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Apr 20, 2011

Robert rated it:

I agree with a number of other readers who have commented on their problems with Ms Skibsrud's style. At one point early on, I noted to myself that I'd never seen so many bleeding commas. I'm glad I persisted, however, because i found there was real power in the main narrative that focuses on the tragic circumstances of the father's experience in Vietnam. In those pages, much of the writing is more direct, and the gain in emotional power is significant. The knotty prose in other parts of the More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Thebookthief rated it:

Am I glad I read this book? Yes. Do I think there were moments of beautiful and poetic phrasing, as well as thoughtful introspection? Yes. Do I think the writing and story as a whole are worthy of the Giller? Not really. I think Skibsrud is going to be a very good writer. I think that her second and third efforts, if they make it to publication, will be books to read and savour.

And I think that this, her first novel, would have benefitted a great deal from a stronger editing hand. More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2011

Shane rated it:

I found the recent story about how this book took off, thanks to the "Giller Effect," a more interesting one than the novel itself.

The storyline is disjointed with frequent shifts in time and place and tells mostly of a daughter’s (I don’t think I got her name) final visit with her alcoholic Vietnam veteran father, Napoleon, who is determined to kill himself by drinking. Napoleon has been at it for many years, drifting through multiple locations after deserting his young fa More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2011

Andrew rated it:

This is the book that recently won Canada's highest-profile literary award, The Giller Prize. A furore followed the announcement that ‘The Sentimentalists’ had won surrounding the inability of the book’s small independent publisher, Gaspereau Press, to produce books fast enough to satisfy the demand. At the time the publisher, Andrew Steeves, said something to the effect that he doubted the wisdom of having just four people (the Giller judges) dictate what the majority should and would read. A g More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2010

Dorothyanne rated it:

I don't get the attention to this book. It is depressing depressing depressing, and there is no relief throughout. Everyone walks about not saying anything to anyone. In one of my "favorite" passages (well, it did make me snort with laugher), the narrator's sister stands up and says nothing to the narrator and the father, then walks to the door, pauses, and says nothing again. It's enough to make me want to scream, simply for some noise in the narrative.
It all seems just a wee bi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2011

Alexander rated it:

Winner of the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, arguably Canada's highest literary award, Johanna Skibsrud's The Sentimentalists made headlines, not just as a first novel but for having been effectively out of print when it won. Produced by a small literary press in Nova Scotia (Gaspereau), the only extant copies were printed letterpress and hand bound; only days before the award was announced, Kobo stepped in to facilitate distribution as an ebook. Skibsrud had previously had two volumes of poetry More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 20, 2011

Andrew rated it:

The talk of the publishing world. The darling about town from the little press that could. Such is the weight that Johanna Skibsrud’s debut novel has been saddled with since its unexpected Giller win back in November 2010. Against what some guessed were sure bets—Light Lifting and Annabel immediately spring to mind—this hand-crafted, small print run title surprised everybody, taking home the largest prize in the Canadian publishing industry.

I managed to snag a copy of this, convenientl More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2010

Cameron rated it:

I think this is an excellent, beautiful book, and I can tell that Skibsrud worked first as a poet before moving into prose. There are sections in the first third of this novel that come across with an amazing amount of personal depth. I think this was a great choice for the Giller Prize. It's a story about trying to understand family. It may be partly autobiographical: certainly at the end the author pays tribute to her father and his experiences, which inspired this novel. At the time of this r More...

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Feb 13, 2012

Nikki rated it:

It could be argued that anything written after 1918 is a war novel of sorts; after the devastation of WWI human consciousness seemed to change, and philosophies, thoughts, and worldviews were altered forever. As such, so much of 20th century lit has been made up of war novels, from the sublime Catch-22 to Ondaatje's English Patient. So the war novel has definitely been covered, not just in lit but in TV (M*A*S*H) and in film. The Sentimentalists hinges on one incident that happened to the narrat More...

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Jul 15, 2011

Special K rated it:

This was a bad choice of book to bring along on a holiday.
Tedious. Boring. Confusing. Not the sort of beautiful and moving story I was hoping to dive into.
My biggest problem: the narrator. On the one hand we are given virtually no details about her own story. Yet on the other we find ourselves privy to her incredibly monotonous and overly-introspective thoughts. (You only have to open a page at random to find a perfect example of this sort of drivel: "It was startling the way th More...

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Jan 03, 2011

Steven rated it:

"I didn't ask Henry any questions on our trips, as I did sometimes in the evenings when he told me stoires, and he didn't ask me any either.
There were questions I would have liked to ask, though, and sometimes I'd wondered them aloud to my father or to Helen. Whey Henry had never married again, for example. And, of course, about Owen.
Once my father said, women think that they can make sad things go away by knowing the reason that they happened. This was in dismissal of a questio More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Lindsey rated it:

I enjoyed reading this book, although I'm uncertain about the ending and what purpose it serves. The first part of the book is narrated by a woman and tells the story of her father throughout her childhood and adulthood. He interacted strangely with her mother and her and her sister - although loving them, unable to communicate with them. He had fought in the Vietnam war, and after suffering a bad break-up, the narrator goes to live with her father to learn more about his experiences. He i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 22, 2011

Tony rated it:

DAY #1: I'm 28 pages in and I have to say that I do not find her prose "lyrical", nor is the story " riveting", as described in the book jacket summary. Her use of commas is very distracting, creating a halting and disruptive feel to her narrative. I read aloud to my wife 3 separate sentences on a single page, each having seven commas or more. Here is a sentence from page 27 that illustrates my point perfectly. It has 4 commas and should have only one:
"He hadn't, More...

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Nov 17, 2011

Lorina rated it:

In 2010 Johanna Skibsrud won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the youngest author to date to take the coveted literary award, for her debut novel, The Sentimentalists.

My own experience of The Sentimentalists was not entirely positive. There are a few moments of poetic writing and beautiful insight; but overall character development often ran to obscurity and confusion, so that it was difficult to connect relationships and individuals. Geographic locations were often muddled, as were nati More...

3 comments like

Feb 27, 2011

Kay rated it:

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

3 comments like

Jun 10, 2011

C rated it:

I couldn't get into this book at all. I only read to page 54 and it just wasn't holding it together for me and I had to return it to the library. I found the writing style really difficult to follow and disjointed. I'm no english major so excuse my limited knowledge of proper writing terminology and styles, but almost every other sentence in the book was a complex sentence. Example: this book, while it might have been interesting if I would have continued to read it and hadn't gotten distrac More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Les rated it:

Another EmGloLes book club pick for the future. Looks like a quick read and has had some rave reviews. Okay, so the GR reviews are not even remotely good. Hmmm . . .

I think we/I should just read this and use a group read for something more substantial or important.

Finished.

Disappointed and frustrated. I tried to have an open mind and ignore the plethora of low reviews. There is a reason for so many such reviews.

There is a great review that discusse More...

4 comments like

Sep 29, 2011

Gem rated it:

The voice of the daughter in this novel is very beautiful. There is not a lot of factual detail in this book, but we learn so much about the characters through their actions, the way they speak, and their memories. The way the author weaves in and out of present day and past memories is very lyrical.

I found it interesting that we aren’t told much about Henry’s past initially, but it is very easy to see how he has been affected by the Vietnam War, one event in particular. This novel is More...

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Aug 25, 2011

Toni rated it:

This debut novel, a sombre story of the unreliability of memory and the emotional ghosts of war won its author the prestigious Scotianbank Giller Prize in 2010.

Skibsrub's background as a poet stands out immediately. The prose is heavy in precision, mainly focussing on words and turns of phrases and less on the action and character development. In my humble opinion this book is overwritten, it is composed with an astounding play on words and over use of adjectives that may be appealing More...

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Feb 08, 2011

Patrick rated it:

This book comes with an odd but alluring pedigree. Not only did it win the prestigious Giller Prize, Canada's top literary honor, it did so after being published by a "micropublisher," Gaspereau Press, who originally printed a whopping 800 copies of the book. The book took down many more commercially imposing titles to win an award that has previously gone to literary titans like Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. After its win, it became a hot item on the Kobo ebook platform, and now W. More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 08, 2011

Karen is currently reading it

I'm currently reading this Giller Prize winner for my bookclub but, oh dear, what a chore! Another reviewer cleverly said that she started to hear the voice of Captain Kirk narrating the novel and that it was all downhill after that. Well, now that Mr Shatner's halting and overdone narration is in MY head I'm going to have to bail on this disappointing read.
OK, to be fair, this is Ms. Skibsrud's first novel (bravo!) and there are some sparkling elements in the book. But mostly, the author More...

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Jul 13, 2011

Dot rated it:

I would have liked to give this book more stars especially as it won the Giller Prize this year. For me the first half of the book was very enjoyable. I liked the imagery and the unfolding of the story about the narrator's father and his unconventional relationship with his family. The second half of the book takes place at the lakeside home of a family friend in Ontario where the narrator questions her father about his role in the Vietnam War and what happened to his friend, Owen, who was al More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2011

Shawn rated it:

Like others, I grabbed this book due to the accolades awarded. And, like others, I enjoyed the story behind both the author and the book's publisher, however it's the book's guts that really count; the words on the pages are the supposed gift, right? Not so much. I loved the poetic license Skibsrud took with her writing style. It was fresh and natural and had a stream-of-consciousness feel that read with a breathless ease. With that said, I also thought she should have used it more selectively b More...

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Nov 10, 2010

Marlys marked it as to-read

Winner of 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize for best Canadian novel or short story collection in English. The jury said that The Sentimentalists "charts the painful search by a dutiful daughter to learn--and more importantly, to learn to understand--the multi-layered truth which lies at the moral core of her dying father's life. Something happened to Napoleon Haskell during his tour of duty in Vietnam that changed his life and haunted the rest of his days. At the behest of his daughters, he mov More...

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Oct 04, 2011

David rated it:

Vietnam War book investigating memory, storytelling, and learning about family members. The narrator tells about life-changing events, experienced in her family, with a veteran father, sister, mother, and friend (the father of one of her dad's killed friends). Ever wonder how to ask somebody, "What is war like?" then realize that question is really hard to ask? This book has some answers. Many readers will be frustrated at the book's pacing and structure. The story requires close readi More...

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May 23, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

I read this book through to the end b/c it won the 2010 Giller Prize, but I am honestly astounded that it could have won, really, any awards. I found the writing to be very halting and jerky, and difficult to follow smoothly. I'm also not entirely sure of the point of the book. For the first half, I had it in my mind that the narrator was a man, but I believe now that it is a woman, even though I cannot be sure. It was interesting to get to know that characters, but it felt superficial and u More...

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