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What Members Thought
This book made SO MUCH more sense to me when I got to the end and saw that many of the chapters had been previously published as standalone short stories. Egan's writing is fantastic, and reading this as a short story collection there are far more hits than misses. However, trying to fit it together as a novel just didn't work for me. The characters were interesting as short-story figures, but we never get to know any of them well enough to care about them very deeply. There are moments in the b
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Wow. I loved the characters, their evolutions, and interweaving of their lives. Egan's technique is excellent, combining a different style for each story and bringing it all back around at the end. I connected with this book on so many levels, too.
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Hmm. I liked a lot of these as individual stories quite a lot. I'm not quite sure how it worked as a whole novel? It was fun to go back and recognize threads as they were revisited, and some individual stories in this were amazing.
I also think maybe my standards for this were raised very high due to this having won pretty much every major literary award? I still liked it a lot but maybe I don't know if anything could live up to all the hype this book has?
I remember reading Selling the General i ...more
I also think maybe my standards for this were raised very high due to this having won pretty much every major literary award? I still liked it a lot but maybe I don't know if anything could live up to all the hype this book has?
I remember reading Selling the General i ...more
Paths cross. People change. Would your friends now recognize the you of 20 years earlier? The author spits darts at the music industry, humanity and reveals a dark take on the future of them both through intersecting individuals. My interest peaked early and then petered out and I am not going to like...tanked at the end. Also, when books have characters that I dislike, I sometimes find it difficult to enjoy the book.
Meh. This really wasn't anything special. Definitely not a Pulitzer-worthy book! But I have to say, the ultimate circularity of the story was worth it in the end...I really did love the last chapter. The penultimate one, though? NOT enjoyable. Powerpoint slides to show how different school will be in a decade? Really???
Otherwise...it was an enjoyable read. It was just really not entirely worth my time, I felt. I don't think my life will be any different for having experienced it.
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Otherwise...it was an enjoyable read. It was just really not entirely worth my time, I felt. I don't think my life will be any different for having experienced it.
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I found this book to be so, so sad, but so, so beautifully written. And the stories were sufficiently intertwined that I found it very compelling and hard to put down. It deserved all the rave reviews it got.
I think I read this with a chip on my shoulder because of the hype, seeing her at a reading, and a bunch of other things. My expectations were "this will divide my life into before this book and after." I also read it in one day, which is possibly not the healthiest thing in the world.
She takes individual characters making a choice which makes you pass judgement, totally sure of how they are, how their lives will turn out, how one choice will domino into the other and they'll be dead, homeless, ...more
She takes individual characters making a choice which makes you pass judgement, totally sure of how they are, how their lives will turn out, how one choice will domino into the other and they'll be dead, homeless, ...more
3.5 stars. I admired this book when I wanted to love it.
Second Jennifer Egan book I've tried, second one I couldn't finish. I even liked the conceit, the way she switches voices between characters every chapter... but something about the way Egan describes these rich, young, drugged-out kids is just too fawning for me. It's like cool-kid syndrome in print, and, I don't know, I just can't do it.
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Jun 19, 2011
Arty
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Jul 31, 2011
Aimee
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Nov 07, 2011
Julie
marked it as to-read
Nov 09, 2011
Elizabeth Hull-Morales
marked it as to-read
May 21, 2013
Isabel
marked it as to-read
Dec 12, 2013
Becca
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
Shelves:
short-stories,
pulitzer
Sep 24, 2020
Heidi
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