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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I loved this book - the format was wonderful and very effective. The writing was beautiful and the characters well thought out. It shouldn't be so great because not a lot happens but that's what made it so enjoyable. I haven't read much by Canadian authors so that was a bonus
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
It was well-written, but the problem with a book spanning 5 or 6 decades and three generations is that there are too many characters and too much left out time. The only characters I really liked where Paul and Andy Others, I didn't really get to know well enough to like, or were just downright awful. Maybe if I could see more into their motiviations, I would have liked them more, but I'll never know.
I see that a previous reviewer compared this to a laundry list, and I think that's very apt. To me, it felt like a series of connected vignettes, but nothing that came together for me as a novel. There is so much description in this book, that while well-written, it overshadows both plot and character development. As a result, I didn't especially care what happened to the roughly-sketched characters in their meticulously detailed surroundings.
I think that Burnard was trying to reflect the ways that family ties, so intense during the early years when the family is under one roof, become attenuated with time, only to be quickly reestablished at times of crisis. The book is organised linearly, with chapters titled by year. In the early part of the book, the chapters are 3 years apart, stretching to 7 years in the middle, and 9 or ten years at the end, though the final chapter comes only 2 years after the last. In each case, we get a minimum of information, just the essentials of what has happened since the last chapter. Burnard handles this masterfully, introducing these isolated facts in a matter-of-fact way through the thoughts and actions of other characters. A second wife is introduced simply by noting that she will be arriving to an event with a family member who was married to someone else in the previous chapter. The meagre details offered about the lives of the protagonists were not enough to make me feel a connection to them, however, and they felt even more impoverished compared to the lavish descriptions of the house, the creek, the arena, and the route to the empty lot.
I recently went to a family wedding at which I was delighted to see cousins I had not spoken to in years. I have the idea that Bonnie Burnard was trying to create the same sense of eager anticipation between these widely spaced chapters. Unfortunately, for me this was a failed attempt.
I think that Burnard was trying to reflect the ways that family ties, so intense during the early years when the family is under one roof, become attenuated with time, only to be quickly reestablished at times of crisis. The book is organised linearly, with chapters titled by year. In the early part of the book, the chapters are 3 years apart, stretching to 7 years in the middle, and 9 or ten years at the end, though the final chapter comes only 2 years after the last. In each case, we get a minimum of information, just the essentials of what has happened since the last chapter. Burnard handles this masterfully, introducing these isolated facts in a matter-of-fact way through the thoughts and actions of other characters. A second wife is introduced simply by noting that she will be arriving to an event with a family member who was married to someone else in the previous chapter. The meagre details offered about the lives of the protagonists were not enough to make me feel a connection to them, however, and they felt even more impoverished compared to the lavish descriptions of the house, the creek, the arena, and the route to the empty lot.
I recently went to a family wedding at which I was delighted to see cousins I had not spoken to in years. I have the idea that Bonnie Burnard was trying to create the same sense of eager anticipation between these widely spaced chapters. Unfortunately, for me this was a failed attempt.
Re-read
I saw someone on here call this a ‘laundry list’ novel and I guess I can see that. A series of events, checked off. But it’s the details, the humanity, the humor that connects the events that makes this story undeniable. I’m almost the age Daphne Chambers is by the end of the book, and I 100% want to be like her when I grow up
I saw someone on here call this a ‘laundry list’ novel and I guess I can see that. A series of events, checked off. But it’s the details, the humanity, the humor that connects the events that makes this story undeniable. I’m almost the age Daphne Chambers is by the end of the book, and I 100% want to be like her when I grow up
This was a fantastic book. I enjoyed it more with each reading. An amazing sense of place and beautiful character development.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Begon heel traag, het verhaal is echt fucked up, maar wel goed geschreven.
I picked this up at the library book sale because the blurb on the back refers to Carol Shields, whom I adore. This book reminds me a lot of Shields - the author is also Canadian, there is a quiet, almost unflappable, tone throughout, and it's one of those books in which not a lot happens (and at the same, quite a lot does happen). It traces one family in Ontario from the 1950s to the present. The stepmother is definitely the standout character - just a rock at the center of everything, and always the one who somehow knows just what other people need. Sometimes the skips in the timeline were a little jarring (but how else do you tell a story that lasts 50 years?).
Good narration but I didn't feel like I connected to any of the characters. Very well written
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes