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3.31 AVERAGE
3.31 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I liked this book more than I bet most people would, but even I'm not sure if I'd put it in my top 1/3 favorite novels I've read this year. That said, this is autofiction where it seems like he's mostly just riffing, and a lot of the riffs are pretty good. I really wished I'd written down a few of them, especially what the narrator said about how novels always seemed to him like the fiction part of them wasn't the point, it was just the sheet draped artfully over the real correspondence. I'm probably butchering it, sorry!
This book was so short that he really could have played around with it to make major improvements. The narrator was pretty self-centered, which makes sense at this life stage, but so much of his identity that he fixates on is that he's a young father and he makes multiple references to his backstory that getting his college girlfriend pregnant is what led to him dropping out. He never really explained what his plan is for growing into responsible fatherhood or what his current obligations entail. Would have loved a little insight into the perspectives of his baby's mother and his own mother's thoughts on the subject.
Since the novel reads like it could be correspondence anyway, I wish he would have gone at least a little epistolary and had some had some more back and forth with other people in this format and getting a glimpse of their riffing back at him. Too many of his interlocutors were just like "hur, I guess I just never thought about religion, but that's cool that you have thoughts about it" or similar. I would have been very enthusiastic about this book if there had been some meetings of minds through emails or letters, and I think this writer has the chops to have pulled it off.
The other time he just came so close to getting me 100% on board was when the narrator talked about a book he'd read in high school with exercises of recalling sense memories of the day each night before bed in order to strengthen the wellspring of imagination. What if he'd tried to incorporate just a little bit more of this being grounded in the embodied experience of the phenomenal world into his daily life?
Tl;dr-- mixed feelings on this, some great passages, not a must-read
This book was so short that he really could have played around with it to make major improvements. The narrator was pretty self-centered, which makes sense at this life stage, but so much of his identity that he fixates on is that he's a young father and he makes multiple references to his backstory that getting his college girlfriend pregnant is what led to him dropping out. He never really explained what his plan is for growing into responsible fatherhood or what his current obligations entail. Would have loved a little insight into the perspectives of his baby's mother and his own mother's thoughts on the subject.
Since the novel reads like it could be correspondence anyway, I wish he would have gone at least a little epistolary and had some had some more back and forth with other people in this format and getting a glimpse of their riffing back at him. Too many of his interlocutors were just like "hur, I guess I just never thought about religion, but that's cool that you have thoughts about it" or similar. I would have been very enthusiastic about this book if there had been some meetings of minds through emails or letters, and I think this writer has the chops to have pulled it off.
The other time he just came so close to getting me 100% on board was when the narrator talked about a book he'd read in high school with exercises of recalling sense memories of the day each night before bed in order to strengthen the wellspring of imagination. What if he'd tried to incorporate just a little bit more of this being grounded in the embodied experience of the phenomenal world into his daily life?
Tl;dr-- mixed feelings on this, some great passages, not a must-read
I was looking forward to this book so much, but my god was it boring.
Competently written; could have been an interesting story about the first Obama campaign if the author hadn’t felt empowered to include so many lengthy digressions into the rest of his personal history, OR an interesting personal history if he hadn’t felt obligated to hang it on the framework of the campaign. The combination of the two was stultifying.
Many thanks to Goodreads and Houghton press for the ARC.
Competently written; could have been an interesting story about the first Obama campaign if the author hadn’t felt empowered to include so many lengthy digressions into the rest of his personal history, OR an interesting personal history if he hadn’t felt obligated to hang it on the framework of the campaign. The combination of the two was stultifying.
Many thanks to Goodreads and Houghton press for the ARC.
adventurous
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a novel about a young black man working on the historical presidential campaign of a black senator. After doing a little research, it sounds like the author worked on Obama’s first presidential campaign and this book draws heavily off of this experience. This is a beautifully written, interesting book that discusses self discovery, race, power imbalances, relationships, wealth, etc. The only critique I have is that it was difficult to follow at some times because the plot was interrupted by the main character’s thoughts quite a bit. Other than that, this book was super thought provoking and I enjoyed reading it!
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It’s a kind of fictionalized autobiography, but it’s neither plot driven nor character driven. Honestly, I have a hard time putting my finger on what this book is supposed to be about. I think it’s just the author’s way of working through his experiences working for Obama’s presidential campaign, but that’s not enough to make it interesting for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Couldn't get invested. Maybe too slow paced or I'm just not in the mood for politics. Plus due back at the library so not going to keep it overdue since not really enthralled.
Felt too Obama coded to listen to when we’re dealing with what we currently are in the US
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Having decided to try to read all the 2025 Tournament of Books shortlist, I started with Great Expectations and I'll resist troping the title in this review.
A debut novel by New Yorker theater critic Vinson Cunningham, it traces the rather passive existence of David Hammond, a twenty-something Black man who almost unwittingly winds up as a staffer on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign (although in the book, the former president is never identified by name). Cunningham was actually a staffer, so one wonders how much of this "novel" might actually be memoir, and that actually becomes important as the "plot" isn't really much of a draw. It isn't about the campaign, to be sure, but we are treated to some smarmier moments of life on the campaign trail, but interspersed with David's musings on his past: his time in the Pentecostal church as a child, his rather incidental fatherhood, his hookups, his childhood in Chicago... It is difficult to get a foothold in the narrative sometimes. There are sentences that sing (and there's a good deal of sonic and musical emphasis in the novel), but then there are more stream-of-consciousness babblings that seem to be aspirational Saramago.
I had a tough time sustaining my attention (two renewals on Libby!), but the last quarter of the book finally seemed to pick up a bit, although I'm hard-pressed to tell you why. There is a little bit of intrigue and controversy that hits the campaign, but David also seems to take that in as a passive observer. It is hard to call him a protagonist as he doesn't seem to be actively or emotionally invested in his own life or observations. They are just there.
It is a good book--and with some of the detritus cleared and perhaps a bit more interest in the trajectory of narrative, it could have been great. Certainly it was enough that I'll be curious to read what comes next from Cunningham, and I hope there is a "next"!
A debut novel by New Yorker theater critic Vinson Cunningham, it traces the rather passive existence of David Hammond, a twenty-something Black man who almost unwittingly winds up as a staffer on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign (although in the book, the former president is never identified by name). Cunningham was actually a staffer, so one wonders how much of this "novel" might actually be memoir, and that actually becomes important as the "plot" isn't really much of a draw. It isn't about the campaign, to be sure, but we are treated to some smarmier moments of life on the campaign trail, but interspersed with David's musings on his past: his time in the Pentecostal church as a child, his rather incidental fatherhood, his hookups, his childhood in Chicago... It is difficult to get a foothold in the narrative sometimes. There are sentences that sing (and there's a good deal of sonic and musical emphasis in the novel), but then there are more stream-of-consciousness babblings that seem to be aspirational Saramago.
I had a tough time sustaining my attention (two renewals on Libby!), but the last quarter of the book finally seemed to pick up a bit, although I'm hard-pressed to tell you why. There is a little bit of intrigue and controversy that hits the campaign, but David also seems to take that in as a passive observer. It is hard to call him a protagonist as he doesn't seem to be actively or emotionally invested in his own life or observations. They are just there.
It is a good book--and with some of the detritus cleared and perhaps a bit more interest in the trajectory of narrative, it could have been great. Certainly it was enough that I'll be curious to read what comes next from Cunningham, and I hope there is a "next"!
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No