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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
I hover somewhere between "liked it" and "really liked it," but in actuality it's more accurate to say I wanted to really like it. I am such a huge Lorrie Moore fan that it's almost a handicap-- I don't think I can criticize this novel. Her language is as gorgeous, witty and dazzling as ever, but the novel lacked the punch-to-the-gut quality that so many of her short stories have. But I'm not ready to relinquish my super-fan status yet! I will wait, ever faithfully, for Ms. Moore's next book.
Chapter One did not impress me. I set it aside for several days only to pick it back up after seeing it on fifty recommended reads lists of 2009. Okay, let me give it another chance.
Glad I did. The story is a thoughtful one. Parenting. Caring for others. Coming of age. Atonement. Loss. Carelessness. Lots to think about here.
I loved the story, but I loved, more than that even, how much Moore enjoyed word play. All her characters, even the most dour, can’t seem to help themselves, throwing a pun or a crazy story about words in their conversations. I must have read some paragraphs three or four times, loving the way Moore decorates her tale.
Glad I did. The story is a thoughtful one. Parenting. Caring for others. Coming of age. Atonement. Loss. Carelessness. Lots to think about here.
I loved the story, but I loved, more than that even, how much Moore enjoyed word play. All her characters, even the most dour, can’t seem to help themselves, throwing a pun or a crazy story about words in their conversations. I must have read some paragraphs three or four times, loving the way Moore decorates her tale.
Lorrie Moore is an interesting writer who creates clearly drawn characters. This was a good, but not great read. Focused on a young college student learning about who she is and who she will become. With a parttime job as a babysitter for a secretive adoptive couple, a boyfriend who may or may not be a terrorist, a brother who may or may not be autistic and parents who are organic farmers with a wacky relationship. Morale of the story is that life goes on, we learn and we grow. Trite, but still a lovely jaunt into Moore's world.
Follows a young woman during her first year in college, as she becomes a nanny for a couple adopting a child, and falls in love with a young man. There are images from the book that float in my mind's eye a week after I finished it. Fascinating characters, interesting developments, but I still had to push myself to keep reading. Perhaps a steady diet of edge-of-the-cliff Bujold has made me an adrenaline junkie?
This is a case where I think I'd have enjoyed the book more if not the audio version.
Midwest girl takes on a job as a nanny in between semesters in a post 9/11 world and finds out lots about parents and children and what it means to be an adult.
On the bad side, I had a hard time remembering the plot of this one, which tells me it wasn't all that stellar.
On the bad side, I had a hard time remembering the plot of this one, which tells me it wasn't all that stellar.
Amazing. The last time I felt like this was after reading James Joyce's "The Dead" for the first time this summer.
Here's what this book is like: long long stretches of slow, dreamy prose, occasionally interrupted by something bizarre, or tragic, or both, coming completely out of left field. Some of the writing is lovely, but the main character is consistently bored and lonely, and so reading the book feels pretty boring and lonely. I absolutely didn't buy the abrupt, shocking revelations about various characters pasts; I really hated that the shockingly selfish behavior of a couple of the main characters was never really addressed. And I refuse to believe that the main character would have read the first line of an obviously important email and just not bothered to read the rest, which is later used to twist an emotional knife for the reader. Who does that?! Completely unrealistic.
Also the kind of detailed, close attention paid to, say, the kinds of flowers growing in someone's yard, which might work well in a short story because there can only be a finite amount of it, just yawned out here. Nothing even really began to happen 'til about halfway through the book, and that's a lot of nothing happening to get through.
On the other hand, I loved Mary-Emma, and wanted much more of her.
I've really enjoyed Lorrie Moore before, and expected to love this. Such a disappointment.
Also the kind of detailed, close attention paid to, say, the kinds of flowers growing in someone's yard, which might work well in a short story because there can only be a finite amount of it, just yawned out here. Nothing even really began to happen 'til about halfway through the book, and that's a lot of nothing happening to get through.
On the other hand, I loved Mary-Emma, and wanted much more of her.
I've really enjoyed Lorrie Moore before, and expected to love this. Such a disappointment.
Some of the writing was incredibly evocative and beautiful, but often it felt over-the-top. Characterization was okay for Tassie, the main character, but Moore kept bringing up her bass-playing and I have no idea why. It wasn't relevant to the plot, and didn't help flesh her out as a character. But every 10 pages we're reminded that Tassie plays the bass. Character development was non-existent for Tassie and everyone else. The writing really was dreamy at times though.