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What Members Thought
4.5 - clear case of some books needing to be read at the right time. This is the third attempt at this one for me - first two times it didn't grasp my interest. This time I was hooked from the start. Fantastic character work, excellent writing. It does take a while for all the threads to come together, but I'm so glad I finally get the hype.
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Tommy Orange's novel
There There
is a beautifully written 288-page novel comprised of the stories of a dozen characters, told in each chapter (most of which appear more than once) titled with the characters' names, in a focused, limited-third-person-perspective for each character. Some of the characters are related, all either live in or have a significant connection to Oakland, California. Orange took the title from the often misunderstood quote from Gertrude Stein, who wrote about the Oak
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An affecting collection of character-driven stories that are connected by a fate that unfolds in the last 50 or so pages of the book, but in reality is a continuation of the oppression, disappointment and anger that has marked the Native American experience for hundreds of years. Orange created fully realized characters that you care about and empathize with, so the abrupt ending feels like a cop-out.
For me, this book had too many people covering too many years with too many connections to keep track of everyone. The list of characters at the beginning helped a little, but not enough for me. Because most of the people ended up with connections to each other, it took a long time for the story to develop.
I really liked the story, it was just too hard to keep up with all the different characters and how they were related. It probably didn’t help that I listened to this book instead of read it. Maybe that would have helped?
Jun 14, 2018
Jolie
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Jul 07, 2018
Judy Diedrichs
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Oct 25, 2018
Kyrstin
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Oct 30, 2018
Shannon
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Apr 26, 2019
Sarah
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May 26, 2019
Julie
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Jul 02, 2019
Kevin Patrick
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Oct 08, 2019
Kelsey Berryhill
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Dec 27, 2019
Brandon
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May 04, 2020
Beth Neipert
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Jun 28, 2020
Susanne
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Sep 10, 2021
Jenn
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Nov 22, 2021
Channon
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Dec 30, 2021
Jessica
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