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At times the writing in this weird, freakish novel is worthy of a lot more than two stars and it often falls into the category of 'I hated this but how could I give it less than three with such beautiful sentences?' Well hate won out.
THis is the story of. Um. Actually I have no idea. WHile Kotapish can go on for pages about the earthy smell emanating from her mother's womb as her unborn sister germinates, she seems to not want to waste too many words on an actual plot. After a lot of heavy prose and piecemeal snippets it APPEARS that the protagonist (name? escaping me, never a good sign though it would be super typical if she was never given one) had witnessed some awful subway incident and left her ill described hectic Manhattan life to park herself in Virginia suburbia. She has a crazy mom, Lois, whose flirtation with deluded insanity is all the more confused by the author's confusing prose, but insanity makes sense if its hereditary since as it happens the unborn child never got born and so protagonist talks to this phantom baby in her closet. Well into her adulthood.
Phantom baby, named Nancy, is the absolutely most disturbing character and seems to only want to set fire to things. She speaks in weird poetic fragments and contributes nothing to the story.
More often than not this seemed to be about the author and not the prot, since she wasn't developed, anyway, and the author was so obviously in love with her own writing. IE she (prot) mentions how at age eight she loved her friend's dad because of the beautiful sentences he composed. I felt like saying, get over yourself and write a book when you're ready to think outside your weird little world.
Anyway other than being rather beautifully composed, as a long poem, this book totally stank. ]]>
by Israel Zamir
I should ask E for titles, he has loved some that I've randomly picked at the library ]]>
by Jeffrey Eugenides
It's ok. I mean I see all the time how books are like allergies, different people react differently. But then I'm still shocked when something I think is just about perfect doesn't do it for someone. But I'm with you on Middlesex, and on your first observation re - books with big circles on them. ]]>
A begrudging three stars. Two seemed harsh as I did read this in basically one sitting, and it is four hundred pages long, which I normally take a writer to task for but here it didn't seem draggy as much as it's a lot of pages for nothing to really happen.
The thing with Hornby is that he's super perceptive and therefore laugh out loud funny, and while he has really outlived his talent with these last three works, he can still deliver, if mediocrily. (is that a word?)Hornby combines a lot of his past glories in this work - a do ntohing guy ala About a BOy, a tribute to music for music's sake ala High Fidelity, an obsession with a star ala Slam, a belated coming of age for an aging woman ala How to be Good. These things have been done (obviously) and lost a lot here - the obession over bands and the assumptions therein - humorous, yes, but tiresome too. It got to be too ridiculous at times which is another thing Hornby does a bit too much of. The story is fairly out there and doesn't really go anywhere - but all that being said, it was highly readable and not as disappointing as I had feared. ]]>
margueya
took the never-ending book quiz.
| questions answered: | 1375 |
| correct: | 897 (65.2%) |
| skipped: | 702 |
| best streak: | 12 |
| questions added: | 0 |
"Oy, Nick. Another one bites the dust."
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Well this a collossal waste of time and paper. Had I but read the binding so I could have known. Mistake. Two one dimensional, pathetic and completely undeveloped and uninteresting people meet or rather glance at each other across a subway; she in her mid 20s, living with a stereotypical abusive bleep, he, several years younger (seventeen - yuck!) living with a completely evil dad who defies any level of complexity or realisticness; their eyes meet and wham. Anyway the odds are stacked against them since she has two kids and he is not legal. So apparently this is meant to be a modern day West Side story in that at least in west side story only one instead of both of them die (romoe and Juliet), well frankly while in this story the improvement was meant to be that they both live to see the ending, I actually think killing off the both of them would have been the one thing to look forward to. What a horribly written, immature and stupid book. ]]>
Considering how much I appreciate this novel, I feel bad that 1 - I never bothered writing a review and 2 - I only gave it four stars. Really, if the fourth time you are reading a book you STILL can't put it down, then it's a winner.
Eva is a reluctant mother (play on Eve?) who enjoys her career and is, plain and simple, a very understandable and relatable woman who simply does not feel the "natural" motherly urge. With this Shriver begins to develop the question of whether or a not a bad seed can be avoided - did her reluctance affect her child at all? And, from birth Kevin seems withdrawn and calculated - so how much was within her ability?
Shriver not only draws you in with her excellent writing and superb characterization, but she also depicts Kevin as so skin crawlingly depsicable that you are emotionally blown away. You definitely understand Eva's disgust as Kevin refuses to be toilet trained for six years, as he deliberately ruins her artwork, and on and on. In the meantime, her husband seems totally into Kevin which also develops the question of how much of an unbiased view are we really getting?
The story is gripping and so well crafted - had I been writing it, I would have ruined the story by making this eventual Columbine killer be all the things we would assume - dress in black, rebellious, etc. But no, Shriver creates a troubling person rather than a 'type' and he so well defies the stereotypes and yet defines the exact persona she wants to create that it is truly astounding.
The novel has a surprise twist that is devastating and also retroactively explains the one seeming forced element of the novel, which is the epistolary fashion, but that aside, it is an incredible read. As I said to my sister, I know you hate books about bad things happening to kids/parents but TRUST ME THIS IS WORTH IT. And it is. ]]>
Ranging between one and four stars depending on the paragraph - and the POV - this small book takes on too many personae as the main drama (and I do mean drama) centers around a snotty, nasty Naomi and her hurt feeling when her gay best friend remains gay despite her wishing otherwise. The authors try to make Naomi sympathetic but her speaking through icons and overall self centeredness really didn't help. The other characters were somewhat interesting but the jerky movements of the novel didn't allow any one person to shine, and there was way too much exploration of the gay issue for my liking, as well as a lot of trying to be clever and just being confusing.
At times this novel really hit home and made some spot on observations, but the overall execution was abrupt and unsatisfying. ]]>