Breakable You in Constant Reader

From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Breakable You

Brian Morton

Start date: June 15, 2010

Finish date: July 15, 2010

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Sherry

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Reading List

* Nominations list for July - December 2025
By Lynn · 7 posts · 21 views

last updated May 06, 2025 06:48PM

* The Schedule for January through June 2025
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last updated Mar 21, 2025 05:14AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 24, 2009 Yulia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: writers-on-writing

When I finished this book, I said, "Damn, this guy can write a novel!" Awful title, yes, but it's easy to get over once you start reading the book.

Though this novel contains many of the same features as Morton's previous work, Starting Out in the Evening, what distinguishes it is that the identity and voice of each of the characters (a past-middle-age writer and his estranged family) are distinct from those in the previous book, making the world of this novel a completely different one from the ...more

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May 02, 2010 Theresa rated it it was ok

I read this book on the long trip to Frankfurt/Riga/Dushanbe. The concept was interesting, but I was left oddly disappointed. In the end, it felt more like a beach book with aspirations than literature. The characters would just start to get interesting, and then they would do something cookie-cutterish that spoiled things for me. The philosophical references of one of the characters seemed more typical of a second year undergrad philosophy major than a graduate student, and were obtrusive rathe ...more

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Sep 22, 2020 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family-story, marriage, womans-story, environmental-issues, grief

I loved this book. It broke my heart and the heartbreak left me sobbing at times. The writing is extraordinary. How is it that I had never heard of Brian Morton. What a missed opportunity. I am making up for lost time. Reading one after another. He hasn't published anything since Florence Gordon. I'll read whatever he writes.

So many section grabbed me...I had to stop marking them.

SPOILER ALERT

This one is about Adam, who is given his friend Issy's manuscript by Izzy's wife after Izzy dies. She ...more

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Jul 11, 2010 April rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I liked this book a lot, although I can't disagree with those who found the final third much less satisfying than what went before. Even so, I thought Morton pulled off telling the story from multiple viewpoints far better than most who attempt it, and I thought his characters were all believable and engaging. His simple style of writing belies the depth of the topics he addresses; to his credit, he seems much more focused on how these issues play out in real life than in having his characters d ...more

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Jun 02, 2010 Al rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2010-books

The later half of the book was very disappointing, the first half very engaging. This is a lot like a couple other books with very sim. stories set in NYC - Zoe Heller's most recent book and The Emperor's Children - all start out incredibly strong and then spiral off into very odd and unsatisfying plot twists. ...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Katy rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

I started out not liking this book, but eventually two of the characters did interest me: the dependable Eleanor, a divorced psychologist and her daughter, Maud, a teacher of philosophy who is writing her dissertation on Kant. I had no interest in the others or their fates. This is my first Brian Morton novel. I enjoyed the New York scene and I thought the story was well imagined and sensitively written.

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