Readers who can only take so much of self-absorbed artist-types will find their patience tried, but it was still worth it for the humor and the dedicaReaders who can only take so much of self-absorbed artist-types will find their patience tried, but it was still worth it for the humor and the dedication to the topic. I don't know if I agree there was as much revelation as there was build-up to one, but it was fun to be along for the ride.
And we need more bad-ass women glaring, "Don't gender my child."...more
Rarely is so much unhappiness rendered so enjoyable. Funny, witty, and caring while keeping her characters at arm's length, the author got me deeply iRarely is so much unhappiness rendered so enjoyable. Funny, witty, and caring while keeping her characters at arm's length, the author got me deeply interested in a family I only had a bit of sympathy for. No one here is particularly likable, but they are all engaging. And like all great family epics, there is no taking one side or the other here. A great feat and lots of fun. Particularly, if like me, you hail from that mysterious phenomenon known as Long Island....more
I can appreciate understatement, nuance and metaphor, but this just seemed stifled. Everyone - nearly everyone - comes off as severely repressed, whicI can appreciate understatement, nuance and metaphor, but this just seemed stifled. Everyone - nearly everyone - comes off as severely repressed, which does not jive at all with my love and understanding of my Long Island and Irish heritage. Granted no culture is monolithic, but Long Island is probably the last place I would set a story with high family drama experienced by characters who say pretty much nothing about it. It's as if the author had the cast of Downtown Abbey dumped on the South Shore with almost none of their wealth intact.
And the repression never rang true to any of the characters - instead of understanding their feelings and the society that kept them from expressing those feelings, they simply came off to me as frustratingly opaque. Yes, there is such a thing as the oppression of the middle class lid screwed tightly on suburbia that robs people of their ability to handle crisis, but the author didn't show or tell us anything about it. The result was a story that felt disjointed and characters who made little sense to me. I'm happy for those who found beauty in it, but I struggled every page of the way through. ...more
Read this instead of watching the TV adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere
Read this if you believe we can handle honestly tRead this and not The Help.
Read this instead of watching the TV adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere
Read this if you believe we can handle honestly talking about racism and classism of the present, not just the past. If you want humor wrapped around characters who nevertheless avoid turning into caricatures. If you want true love shining through the biting satire. If you just want a really good story, but are ready to have your own conscience poked at. If you want to hear from someone who clearly knows what she's talking about.
(Mini-spoiler alert: I was delighted but not at all surprised to find out the author worked as a long-term babysitter.)...more
Epitomizing the quarter-life-crisis culture at its center, this story is 90% dialogue. And the dialogue is 90% psychoanalysis - every character callinEpitomizing the quarter-life-crisis culture at its center, this story is 90% dialogue. And the dialogue is 90% psychoanalysis - every character calling out each other and themselves, convinced they've got it down. It makes for some fun reading that tricks the reader into thinking it's simpler than it is. At times the dialogue and non-stop telling leaves you wishing there had been a bit more showing - quieter moments or descriptions of actions rather than words to help the characters feel a bit more realistic. But late twentysomethings like these guys are rarely interested in that and they make every line worth your while....more
I would have absolutely loved this in college. It's a poem, not a novel, with a six-page-long paragraph to prove it. Fortunately, this style matches tI would have absolutely loved this in college. It's a poem, not a novel, with a six-page-long paragraph to prove it. Fortunately, this style matches the theme. Highly recommend it to those who enjoy a challenge or a new look at a well-known topic. Not for those in search of snappy dialogue. Or proper nouns....more
One of the most heart-wrenching novels I've ever read. If you don't feel the same way, don't talk to me about it.
Having seen Angels in America, Pride One of the most heart-wrenching novels I've ever read. If you don't feel the same way, don't talk to me about it.
Having seen Angels in America, Pride and several documentaries about the AIDS crisis, I simply could not fathom being this surprised by one story. But that's what great novels do. Get you to adore many characters, want to throttle others, and appreciate how even - or perhaps especially - your favorites are called out on their own flaws and are forced into self-doubt.
Many novels describe death from the visitor's chair in the hospital room, from the hospital bed, from the memorial and the dividing up of belongings, from the lives that go on, but not all of them do it in a way that conjures up every one of your own personal experiences in such places until you can't hold back the tears. And few novels get you to realize - fully realize - that people you love really lived through all this and this is what they meant when they said they never expected to live past 40. A photo of me as an infant next to these loved ones was a moment of joy and innocence captured just a month after HIV had been identified in Paris.
It's like the moment you look at your child and truly realize he's the very same age his grandfather was when he was forced to literally run from bombs. We doom scroll constantly past death and destruction. But books like these stop you in your tracks, leaving you wondering how you really managed to skim past it before....more
A page-turner fairy tale, easy crowd-pleaser. The prose was often poetic. But the plot is engaging because it is absolute fast-food.
I kept hoping it A page-turner fairy tale, easy crowd-pleaser. The prose was often poetic. But the plot is engaging because it is absolute fast-food.
I kept hoping it would go a little deeper. But I gave up on hope when it was clear that the child abandoned and abused, living in the backwoods and shunned by everyone above her on the class ladder, would offer us an against-all-odds prodigious heroine instead of profound insight into the hardcore effects of abandonment and abuse on intellect and emotional development. You don't have to be Bobby Kennedy doing a poverty tour of Appalachia to know there are real-life kids in Kiya's circumstances - too many to count. But in real life, we middle-class readers generally afford them little more than headshake of pity, perhaps a vicarious donation to a Save the Children fund. We don't consider our own complicity in their marginalization when we glance at them sitting alone at the lunch table or hear a friend snicker about their hygiene.
But we root for them like hell when they're imaginary, reveling in the idea that we too could survive out on our own, Mowgli-like. The book is engaging, like the Jungle Book before it. And like the Jungle Book, it's pure fairy tale....more
Brilliantly original prose, wit sprinkled about just conservatively enough to suprise you when you stumble upon it, and observations based on what theBrilliantly original prose, wit sprinkled about just conservatively enough to suprise you when you stumble upon it, and observations based on what they don't reveal.
I had a strong desire at the end for more - more knowledge of who everyone was, more evidence of *someone* having changed profoundly since the story's beginning. But you know it's a great story when it leaves you yearning....more
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