bookshelves: to-read
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WHERE CAN WE SEE IT???? ]]>
Well, wowza. This is one hell of a novel. Written with elegant precision - every character in it, major or minor, is incredibly well drawn. My sympathies shifted from character to character and back again. You love these characters, you hate these characters, you KNOW these characters. The novel is laced with humor but it never made me laugh. It was all so desolate and sad which is not at all the kind of mood I am ever in (I'm sickeningly, perennially cheerful), yet it was compulsively readable. I found myself every night staying up way past my bedtime because I had to read just a bit further!
This book transcends the age in which it was written. Although written in 1961 and taking place in 1955 the ideas and feelings in it could easily be placed in any decade. I would recommend that anyone in a relationship read this book. It could be good or bad for you, but there are things to glean from April and Frank Wheeler that just may make a difference in your own life.
Tennessee Williams said about Revolutionary Road, "Here is more than fine writing; here is what, added to fine writing, makes a book come immediately, intensely and brilliantly alive. If more is needed to make a masterpiece in modern American fiction, I am sure I don't know what it is."
I feel that way too. This is a classic American novel, one that deserves to be studied in school alongside The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. ]]>
bookshelves: read-in-2009
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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bookshelves: read-in-2009
I had seen the film version of this on cable several years back and remembered enjoying it. The first line of this novel, "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink" often comes up on various book trivia lists. So my interest was already piqued when I picked up a remainder copy of the movie tie-in edition at Elliot Bay Books in Seattle. I was interested to discover that it was out of print for many many years and was triumphantly celebrated by the critical media upon its return to publication.
17 year old Cassandra Mortmain is a charming and entertaining narrator. She is writing in a journal, but as it is practice for being an actual writer she tries to write her entries as she would a novel, with all dialogue recorded and true honesty when it comes to all the characters in her story, herself included.
She attempts to "capture" the story of her family as they live in poverty in an old ramshackle castle in the English countryside during the 1930s. There is love, and bohemia, and mystery, and adventure and confusion and hilarity and a little sadness too. I really felt for these characters and was dreading the end of the story when I would have to leave them.
I adored this book. I know I will reread it. I recommend it to everyone. ]]>
I remember that 90s remake because the media tried to make it appealing to tweens (who at that time were not called tweens) like me and put Balthazar Getty and that blonde kid in all the Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and Bop magazines! Seriously, they were trying to set up the boys in Lord of the Flies as teen heartthrobs!!! It's so wrong. . . ]]>
""The baby boomers f*cked it up, like they f*ck up everything they touch.""
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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Neil! That is crazy insane! I saw the pictures. I am so terribly sorry for you!
Was it just random? What is happening??? ]]>