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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
I love Lorrie Moore so I was surprised by how much I disliked this! Listen I was a college student in Wisconsin shortly after 9/11 and WE DID NOT TALK LIKE THIS, NO COLLEGE STUDENT TALKS LIKE THIS.
Meandering story where nothing happens, it's all atmosphere and sure rural areas can be spoooooooky but I was too frustrated to feel anything. This is what happens when a smug white 19-year-old gets a liberal arts education and *thinks* they can run a Marxist class analysis on their hometown but they actually spend most of their time making fun of Asian accents inside a Chinese restaurant or proving how "worldly" they are by saying Japanese design is boring.
Did not like!
Meandering story where nothing happens, it's all atmosphere and sure rural areas can be spoooooooky but I was too frustrated to feel anything. This is what happens when a smug white 19-year-old gets a liberal arts education and *thinks* they can run a Marxist class analysis on their hometown but they actually spend most of their time making fun of Asian accents inside a Chinese restaurant or proving how "worldly" they are by saying Japanese design is boring.
Did not like!
Oh, did I want to love this book. Because I love Lorrie Moore. I do, I do. But I thought that this book failed in so many big ways which, unfortunately, overshadowed the lovely things that Moore did with language. It's a schizophrenic little book...a teenager trying to decide who it wants to be (class clown? emo-chick? drama queen? band geek?). I found myself baffled (and even a little insulted) by some of the plot elements which verged on the ludicrous at times. I also found the narrator to be credible but really, really tragically flippant at all the wrong moments. Oh shoot. I hate to say bad things about writers I admire.
I kept forgetting about this book as I read it, then I'd return and enjoy the story in a passive sort of way. I really love Lorrie Moore, and this book was good--even if it is a little forgettable at times.
I listened to, rather than read, this book. I listen to plenty of podcasts, often without retaining the information I hear, but or some reason I was able to remember all of this story, and I wanted to find time in the car to listen to it. I even copied the second half on to my iPod to maximize the time I had to listen.
Lorrie Moore's prose can be beautiful and honestly, I didn't find it distracting. Unlike some other reviews, I found Tassie's lack of direction, her misunderstanding of her boyfriend's background, and her nearly non-existent social life all to be believable. I'm a city girl but in some ways she and I are very much alike, spending a lot of time thinking by ourselves, dabbling in this or that. I will admit that I found Murph's reactions to Tassie to be disingenuous at times, but other than that I think Moore did a good job of writing from a 20-year-old's perspective.
The Thornwood-Brinks: What odious people. Holier than thou, but knowing all the time they don't deserve to look down at anyone. I loved Mary Emma, and wanted so much better for her. Poor kid.
I enjoyed hearing this book, but am not sure I would have put it on the "Best of 2009" list, as the New York Times did. That said, I didn't read many (or any!) other books from 2009 to compare it to, so maybe they're on to something. I bet that even with Moore's language this would have been a quick read, so I recommend it on that basis as well. (The audio version was listed at 12 hours.)
Lorrie Moore's prose can be beautiful and honestly, I didn't find it distracting. Unlike some other reviews, I found Tassie's lack of direction, her misunderstanding of her boyfriend's background, and her nearly non-existent social life all to be believable. I'm a city girl but in some ways she and I are very much alike, spending a lot of time thinking by ourselves, dabbling in this or that. I will admit that I found Murph's reactions to Tassie to be disingenuous at times, but other than that I think Moore did a good job of writing from a 20-year-old's perspective.
The Thornwood-Brinks: What odious people. Holier than thou, but knowing all the time they don't deserve to look down at anyone. I loved Mary Emma, and wanted so much better for her. Poor kid.
I enjoyed hearing this book, but am not sure I would have put it on the "Best of 2009" list, as the New York Times did. That said, I didn't read many (or any!) other books from 2009 to compare it to, so maybe they're on to something. I bet that even with Moore's language this would have been a quick read, so I recommend it on that basis as well. (The audio version was listed at 12 hours.)
No spoilers till after my book club breaks it down. :-)
There really is only one Lorrie Moore. Trenchant, sardonic, sympathetic, and with a pitch-perfect ear, she captures the innermost thoughts, the vocabulary and intonations, and the minute, otherwise throw-away personal qualities of her characters sublimely. I am a huge fan, but recommend her books only to people who are comfortable with writers who can find the comedic moment in the midst of tragedy. Count me among them.
This was my first Moore and she sort of blew my mind. There were passages of prose so beautiful, I would read them over and over. I didn't give the full 5-stars as I found the story a bit disjointed. Moore deals with some very heavy themes and, at times, it felt like there was some "trying too hard" moments that tripped up the flow of the story and my reading. There is a lot to think about with this story - my brain is still whirring over Moore's writing. The last part of the story is near perfect.
The plot of this book was interesting, but everything about it was just completely unrealistic. First of all, Tassie absolutely does not have the voice of a twenty-year-old Midwestern college student. Her actions/speech/thoughts are of a much much much older, more mature person. I also found it extremely unlikely that all of the things that happen in the book to her (dating a Muslim extremist and possible terrorist, everything that happens with Mary Emma, and then her brother dying) would happen to the same person within a year period. The whole thing was just ridiculous to me.