Justin's review
My Life as a Fake
by Peter Carey
Justin's review
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
Justin's review
rating:
recommended for: People forced to choose between this and some airport terminal paperback.
The beginning of this book is painful and slow; I almost put it down after forty pages. It picks up after a little while and the story becomes inventive and unique, but overall the characters are flat, unsympathetic, and underdeveloped. The writing is dry and incongruent, meaning that the experimental approach to the dialogue is a good idea, but is poorly executed because of the conservative style. I hope that makes sense. They don't really fit together and instead force the reader to re-read certain passages (something I'm sure was intentional, but nevertheless halting and irritating). The story itself is good for about 100 pages, but eventually goes nowhere. the overall alegory is interesting, and I believe I will probably spend some time going over it and reviewing it, but that is insufficient criteria for a good book. I'd be interested to read his other books, since most of the reviews I've read on this site are sympathetic to him as a writer, but not to this book. Any recommendati...more
