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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Maybe 3.5 stars. I guess it was okay watching a fictional family experience the whole history of New York City. But maybe not really my thing.
This is a LONG book. I was super into it the first 3 or 4 generations. And then, all of a sudden, I just felt done with it. It felt like huge historical moments were just being tossed in quickly and just when you got really invested in the current generation you’d be on to the next when the older generation seemed to have so much more story to go.
I gave it a 4 because the first half was a 5 but then it plummeted to a 3. Averaged out to a 4.
I definitely learned a lot about the history of New York though, the amount of research that goes into Rutherfurd’s books is incredible.
I gave it a 4 because the first half was a 5 but then it plummeted to a 3. Averaged out to a 4.
I definitely learned a lot about the history of New York though, the amount of research that goes into Rutherfurd’s books is incredible.
I picked this book up on a summer Kindle sale, after originally being intrigued by the author's London title, which was not available for Kindle when I was looking at it. I really enjoyed this book and the variety of topics and the wide swath of history that it covered, with the common characters and family threads tying together each time period. The history of New York City is covered from the first settlers and merchants in Dutch New Amsterdam through to the September 11 attacks on the twin towers, with plenty of touchstones of well-known events (including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire) and political/social trends along the way. One family is represented throughout the entire novel, and multiple other families show up from time to time as they interact with the scions of the main character tree. This family provided an excellent continuity for the entire novel, and it was fascinating to see how the family's fortunes and social influence changed over time. Slavery is touched upon throughout the first third/half of the book, with kindness as well as honesty, and the stories told of those characters certainly have the ring of truth to them. I found some of the social commentary to be the most interesting, as I do have familiarity with many of the events and politics covered, so the social discussions especially covering the early 1900s were new territory for me. I really recommend this book if you have any interest in the city of New York, or if you like novels that cover long time periods yet still manage to produce a cohesive tale. I'm looking forward to picking up additional titles by this author in the future.
i read this because i thoroughly enjoyed Paris. I didn't care for this novel as much. The characters didn't touch me or just when you get to know them it's on to the next relative. I wish he would have continued with Hudson's bloodline, they just disappeared from the book after the draft riot. I really liked Hetty and I love history so the book still did some good in my eyes :)
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
An epic, engrossing story that takes us through the centuries from the founding of New York to the 2000's. Following the fortunes of the Master's family and their friends.
I always enjoy Rutherfurd's novels, and this one was no exception. I don't actually know that many details about US history, so it was interesting in that sense. My only complaint was that it seemed to focus a lot on a few particular eras, and didn't cover as much range as some of his other novels. A younger city though, so perhaps no surprise. I do really like how he tells the story without telling you all of the details.
I love Rutherford books. Great stories, and I always learn interesting things. This one was particularly moving, considering the last scenes....
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
I encountered Rutherford for the first time when I was given Sarum as a Christmas gift. My review of that novel is my most popular here on goodreads. Check it out to get an idea of what I thought of that one.
Though This book is of course not Sarum, it is by the same author, and it had some of the same problems that to me took away from Sarum. Actually, it had more of those problems than did Sarum.
The story telling is best in New York, despite flaws, from the start of the book until the section Empire State. I personally thought the introduction of the Carusos at all was unnecessary, and I would have rather stayed with the Master clan, and perhaps the O'Donnell's. But the Caruso family shows up nonetheless, out of nowhere in the narrative. And they vanish almost as quickly after about 200 hundred pages, with a cameo mention of a random Caruso in the final sections.
All by way of saying that once we hit "Brooklyn" everything seems to feel more forced, and rushed, just as Sarum did the closer we got to more modern times. There is a metric ton of what they call "As-you-Know-Bob" in this book in all sections, and it is particularly tedious in regards to banking details. But it just balloons with Brooklyn and everything after that. Characters are more flat, and seem to do little, other than run cosmically into one another through the ages, as per the Rutherford trademark. So much so that it felt to me that the last generation I was truly "connected" to was Frank and Rose. All that came after them in my mind was just that, "people after Frank." They weren't there own as much as what came before them.
As for New York itself, one obviously cannot cover every event of a city's history in one novel. However, some aspects of the very DNA of New York at best got passing mention, (The '77 Blackout and Son of Sam. Baseball itself. The death of John Lennon) or were ignored entirely. (World War II.)
And though I am not from NYC, all Americans have a general sense of what New York is like, at least in broad strokes, and much of this novel, I am sad to say, didn't feel very, "New Yorky."
Exquisite research is evident throughout, but this novel suffers from inferior story telling for much of the second half at least. Even taken as a whole, it lacks the depth and personality of Sarum.
Though This book is of course not Sarum, it is by the same author, and it had some of the same problems that to me took away from Sarum. Actually, it had more of those problems than did Sarum.
The story telling is best in New York, despite flaws, from the start of the book until the section Empire State. I personally thought the introduction of the Carusos at all was unnecessary, and I would have rather stayed with the Master clan, and perhaps the O'Donnell's. But the Caruso family shows up nonetheless, out of nowhere in the narrative. And they vanish almost as quickly after about 200 hundred pages, with a cameo mention of a random Caruso in the final sections.
All by way of saying that once we hit "Brooklyn" everything seems to feel more forced, and rushed, just as Sarum did the closer we got to more modern times. There is a metric ton of what they call "As-you-Know-Bob" in this book in all sections, and it is particularly tedious in regards to banking details. But it just balloons with Brooklyn and everything after that. Characters are more flat, and seem to do little, other than run cosmically into one another through the ages, as per the Rutherford trademark. So much so that it felt to me that the last generation I was truly "connected" to was Frank and Rose. All that came after them in my mind was just that, "people after Frank." They weren't there own as much as what came before them.
As for New York itself, one obviously cannot cover every event of a city's history in one novel. However, some aspects of the very DNA of New York at best got passing mention, (The '77 Blackout and Son of Sam. Baseball itself. The death of John Lennon) or were ignored entirely. (World War II.)
And though I am not from NYC, all Americans have a general sense of what New York is like, at least in broad strokes, and much of this novel, I am sad to say, didn't feel very, "New Yorky."
Exquisite research is evident throughout, but this novel suffers from inferior story telling for much of the second half at least. Even taken as a whole, it lacks the depth and personality of Sarum.