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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
Try angsty, "atmospheric", and utterly self-indulgent, never mind the fact that it's too obvious that her editor must be illiterate. Either that or she knows someone or is related to someone to get this kind of bottom-of-the-pit novel published by a major publishing house.
10/9/09: An extraordinary book--reading it is like eating the most divine foods--you want to savor every phrase and metaphor. Her images are made of just ordinary words, but combined in such a way that they jump off the page at you. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that it's uneven; the first half rolls along with this wonderful story and characters, and then quite quickly the plot goes steeply downhill, and suddenly the most distressing events start happening, one right after another. It's a very sad story; believable, but hard. Still, I recommend it!
"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.
4.5 - I finished this book nearly in one go and I loved it! Smart, funny, gripping, and profound - all in one. (No small feat!) She keeps a riveting storyline going while also filling the book with delightful details (her course list alone is enough for LOLs) and fantastic dialogues. I also couldn’t get enough of the characters. Can Noel have a spin-off novel?! Plus, how does she make the mid-west of America seem so interesting? So glad I grabbed this at my local used bookstore!
The first 60 pages of this book were light, warm, and witty, however I'm not sure what happened to the book after that. The rest of the book felt like an unedited high school writing competition submission. Perhaps this was the intent? I would give it 2.5 stars for the moments of absolute hilarity, but the rest is a meandering mess.
Finally done. I never thought it would end. I read a couple of books while plowing through this one. I don't really recommend it. Got interesting in the middle and then just fizzled out. Never went anywhere.
So, it's coming down to the end of the year, and I have a limited amount of time to hit my book count goal, and I'm cranky now that I've wasted a couple days on this book yet I can't bring myself to finish it. It's pretentious, and that was fine, it still seemed relatively worthwhile, the story of a college girl becoming a nanny for an eccentric couple and their recently adopted biracial daughter. College kids are often newly pretentious, so that was fitting for a while. Then we get to overhear the long white-privilege-guilt conversations of the parents of the other adoptees of color in town, and that was....something. But I was about halfway through the book and I really wanted to be able to count it on my list, so on I pressed. And then it turns out the Brazilian guy the nanny was dating was actually a terrorist? I think? And he wasn't Brazilian? I am sure there's some theme going on here about race and class and religion and pretention, but at that point none of the characters in the book retained any appeal for me, except the biracial child, and she is like two years old so doesn't have a lot to add to the conversation. I'm going to get out while the getting is good, and recommend you do the same. Also I wouldn't give his book any stars but I couldn't figure out how to review it without first rating it, so I'm gonna go see if I can delete that star now.