Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
A book of no great charm but no great flaw, except possibly the overworked language. And in a book that comes close to a hanging offense. Take the voice of the main character: despite being a young college student the main character sounds far more like what I imagine the author would sound like. The author shows off too much.
The story was only just passable. It was melodramatic and predictable and because of that none of the events had an deep emotional impact. This book feels like it is trying to tell many things but in the end fails to tell anything well or believably.
There are much better books to read than this. Skip.
The story was only just passable. It was melodramatic and predictable and because of that none of the events had an deep emotional impact. This book feels like it is trying to tell many things but in the end fails to tell anything well or believably.
There are much better books to read than this. Skip.
I really didn't care for this book, but she did bring up some good adoption points and questions. Adoptive parents should be checked more thoroughly and the adoption process should be more transparent.
I don't like not liking a book, but I really skimmed the end of it, I just couldn't read it anymore :(
I don't like not liking a book, but I really skimmed the end of it, I just couldn't read it anymore :(
Can a character be too wise beyond her years? I loved Tassie, the main character in this novel, yet I didn't believe her smarts and quips. It seemed too written but also so well written. Can't fault Lorrie Moore for that.
It's probably appropriate to this book that I have a lot of disconnected and neurotic thoughts on it. That was the overwhelming tenor of the book: random, cluttered, eclectic, nonsensical. I think it wouldn't have bothered me so much if there hadn't been a clear, strong narrative hanging behind all the stream-of-consciousness and stupid word games, with clear, strong emotional currents. The main character was at a great distance from herself and from the reader, even though it was told in first-person.
That being said, there were a lot of sharp observation on the particularity of the Midwest and on the particularity of leaving that kind of place for an education and on the quiet ways of growing into the love of another person.
That being said, there were a lot of sharp observation on the particularity of the Midwest and on the particularity of leaving that kind of place for an education and on the quiet ways of growing into the love of another person.
super intense book. but at the same time, witty. racially driven intensity at the height of post 9/11 and war in Afghanistan.
I thought this was really well written, and the sentences and level of detail were great. I'm still undecided on how I feel about the ending, though. I think I need to sit with it a little longer.
"Don't make your own life your project in your own life: total waste of time."
This sums up the whole book, really: characters unchanged by anything, trapped in their own miserable indifference and static states. Tassie was ultimately "whatevs" about everything, including her lying, fundamentalist, Muslim boyfriend (she gives up a pretty good speech when he tells her he's taking off because he's suspected of being in a terrorist cell, but after that there's no contemplation of the situation at all); her lying, involuntarily murderous employers ("just keep this paperwhite paste for me"? what the fuck?); and the removal-into-oblivion of the child in her care. "Whatevs," all the characters seemed to be saying, even when faced with devastating losses or bright sparks of joy. Resolved to be stuck inside the human wheel, no desire to make a project of --i.e. attempt to influence outcomes in--their own lives.
I'm really sorry I wasted the time it took to see if my first evaluation was correct.
This sums up the whole book, really: characters unchanged by anything, trapped in their own miserable indifference and static states. Tassie was ultimately "whatevs" about everything, including her lying, fundamentalist, Muslim boyfriend (she gives up a pretty good speech when he tells her he's taking off because he's suspected of being in a terrorist cell, but after that there's no contemplation of the situation at all); her lying, involuntarily murderous employers ("just keep this paperwhite paste for me"? what the fuck?); and the removal-into-oblivion of the child in her care. "Whatevs," all the characters seemed to be saying, even when faced with devastating losses or bright sparks of joy. Resolved to be stuck inside the human wheel, no desire to make a project of --i.e. attempt to influence outcomes in--their own lives.
I'm really sorry I wasted the time it took to see if my first evaluation was correct.