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lattelibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
A Long Way From Home details the aboriginal parts of Australia and the history that these characters never knew. Filled with family drama, car parts, and fast driving, this book gives us a look at Australia that most of us have likely never seen before. The characters are unforgettable, and the trials, tribulations, and towns they go through are equally unforgettable.
This isn't typically my type of book, but it was so far out of what I'm used to that I knew I had to give it a go, and I'm really glad I did! The writing was phenomenal, and the story and histories that Carey details is both beautiful, fast-paced, and intriguing. This is definitely perfect for the person who loves cars, history, and Australia.
Review cross-listed here!
This isn't typically my type of book, but it was so far out of what I'm used to that I knew I had to give it a go, and I'm really glad I did! The writing was phenomenal, and the story and histories that Carey details is both beautiful, fast-paced, and intriguing. This is definitely perfect for the person who loves cars, history, and Australia.
Review cross-listed here!
krobart's review against another edition
4.0
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/review-1473-a-long-way-from-home/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/review-1473-a-long-way-from-home/
chipie's review against another edition
3.0
My first Peter Carey book, I really liked the style, I often hate 1st person narratives but here it was well done. Despite that it was somehow still a slow read and the themes didn't quite mesh together or at least I didn't really "get" the point of the book.
essjay1's review against another edition
2.0
Listened to this as an audio book, perhaps I should have read it but just felt repetitive.
kategci's review against another edition
3.0
I think I read Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda a long time ago, but have no recollection of the story. I picked this up for a pop-up book group with Book the Writer in NYC, where you meet with the author to discuss his or her work in general with a focus on a particular title. Peter Carey has written many books and is a seasoned speaker, but seemingly very honest, as he did not always give pat, expected answers to questions. This book starts with several story lines and characters and in the beginning, I thought it was more of a caper story. Titch and Irene Bobs are entered into the 1954 Redex Trial, which was a true timed rally around the perimeter of Australia in the latest cars. Irene befriends their next door neighbor, Willie Bachuber, who is a genius with maps, becomes their navigator and learns he is a genius with timing as well. From there, the story takes off on several tangents, some more serious than others. Initially, I found it jarring, but by the end of the book I saw where Mr. Carey was going with the story. Meeting with him and learning the book's origin story made me like it much more. As a large part of the story is concerned with the Aboriginal people who lost themselves and their history when Australia became a penal colony of England, their is a lot of dialect in the book. Wanting to know where the story led, I kept reading and after a few pages, I was able to understand or get the gist of most of it. Peter Carey is am award winning, talented writer who, through his descriptions of the characters and the country, transported me to Australia for several days.
linesuponapage's review against another edition
4.0
A Long Way From Home is a long and bumpy ride courtesy of the Redex Race in Australia all the while exploring the tensions of Australia's racial tension between the white people and the aborigines. We get a taste of the traumatic history surrounding the Aboriginal people when Mrs. Bob's happens upon a mass gravesite and finds a child's skull, and when William Bauchuber is abducted happenstance-ly while navigating for Mr. and Mrs. Bobs, all from Baccus Marsh, while running the Redex Race. He is deposited on a ranch that needs a school teacher and interestingly finds out about his own life to boot.
The book is filled with broadly unique, quirky characters that sometimes while reading the book I wanted more about one or more of the characters for more pages in the chapter, instead of jumping around chapter to chapter trying to figure out within the first few sentences who the story for that chapter is about, which is like trying to spin your tires out of the mud. I would've loved a little more from Mrs. Bob's history before Mr. Bob's comes into the picture.
Mrs. Bobs is a strong, spirited woman who wished she was my next door neighbor. The adventures we could have would be always fun.
I truly enjoyed the story and it's humorist take on road races. I learned a lot about Australia's countryside and cities I had never heard of until this book. This story by Peter Carey which he has written like a love story to his country was lyrically told until the last few chapters where the story
seemed to stall like a car when the radiator overheats and then sputters dead in the desert.
I give this book 3.5 instead of 4 only because I took a half point off for the ending.
You can pre-order this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble or do as I do and buy from an Indie Bookstore.
I appreciate having the chance to read this before it was published. I know I will be reading more from Mr. Carey. Thanks Penguin Books and First to Read for the opportunity to read, A Long Way From Home in lieu of my honest review.
The book is filled with broadly unique, quirky characters that sometimes while reading the book I wanted more about one or more of the characters for more pages in the chapter, instead of jumping around chapter to chapter trying to figure out within the first few sentences who the story for that chapter is about, which is like trying to spin your tires out of the mud. I would've loved a little more from Mrs. Bob's history before Mr. Bob's comes into the picture.
Mrs. Bobs is a strong, spirited woman who wished she was my next door neighbor. The adventures we could have would be always fun.
I truly enjoyed the story and it's humorist take on road races. I learned a lot about Australia's countryside and cities I had never heard of until this book. This story by Peter Carey which he has written like a love story to his country was lyrically told until the last few chapters where the story
seemed to stall like a car when the radiator overheats and then sputters dead in the desert.
I give this book 3.5 instead of 4 only because I took a half point off for the ending.
You can pre-order this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble or do as I do and buy from an Indie Bookstore.
I appreciate having the chance to read this before it was published. I know I will be reading more from Mr. Carey. Thanks Penguin Books and First to Read for the opportunity to read, A Long Way From Home in lieu of my honest review.
growlcat's review against another edition
3.0
Got this as an audio book but would have enjoyed it much more if I had read it myself. The narrators were dreadful, particularly Eloise Oxer.
thematinee's review against another edition
4.0
I suddenly feel like taking a very long drive through the outback with my wife...
alundeberg's review against another edition
3.0
If you have ever read Peter Carey before then you know to buckle up, buttercup, because it's always a wild ride. In "A Long Way From Home" Carey uses Australia's Redex Trial, an endurance car race that circumnavigates the continent, to not only explore the country's often inhospitable territory, but the rocky terrain of its racism and near ethnic cleansing of its Aboriginal people. However, the story-telling is also uneven. Its double-narrative focuses on Irene Bobs, a woman who works tirelessly for her husband Titch, who is overshadowed by his father, to get his own car dealership and serves as his second driver in the Redex; and Willie Bachhuber, their well-learned quiz show winning neighbor who acts as their navigator. Through Irene and Titch, Carey focuses on the inequality between the sexes as women are the unsung heroes while the men claim all of the glory. Through Willie, he explores the various ways whites have destroyed and disenfranchised the Aborigines and how the scars of the past live on into the future. Titch and Irene's plight for autonomy seems to mirror Willie's until the last section of the book titled "A Fork in the Road" and here Carey decided to ditch Titch and Irene and focus on Willie's struggle for identity. Carey's work is always interesting and thought-provoking, and I gained more insight into Australia's history, but the novel did not feel like a unified whole; good, but not his best work.