Scan barcode
candacesiegle_greedyreader's review
4.0
This is the first Mona Simpson book I’ve actually made it through. The others I’ve tried—and I think I’ve tried them all— seemed to get stuck and my interest couldn’t hold on long enough to see whether they were ever able to jump to the next groove.
Maybe it’s because “Casebook” is shorter than her other novels, but it never flags. The adolescent protagonist, Miles, is such a believable kid, as are his good buddy Hector, his parents, and The Boops, his little twin sisters. Would this family have stayed together without Miles’ meddling? It’s hard to say. But the journey of the Adler Hart family is moving, charming, sad, and ultimately uplifting.
Maybe it’s because “Casebook” is shorter than her other novels, but it never flags. The adolescent protagonist, Miles, is such a believable kid, as are his good buddy Hector, his parents, and The Boops, his little twin sisters. Would this family have stayed together without Miles’ meddling? It’s hard to say. But the journey of the Adler Hart family is moving, charming, sad, and ultimately uplifting.
captkaty's review
4.0
Great atmospheric coming-of-age novel about a boy who starts spying on his mom, at first because he worries his parents may get a separation, and later because he suspects his mom's new boyfriend is not who he claims to be.
kcfromaustcrime's review
1.0
It's taken quite a few attempts to read CASEBOOK, it's been one of the most picked up and discarded books in the review pile for quite a while.
The idea behind it was part of the problem – a young boy eavesdropping on his family as his parent's marriage falls apart. It feels therefore like it's going to be very personal. Devastating even. Unfortunately the storytelling relies heavily on the stream-of-conscious voice of young Miles – who frankly – doesn't feel “real”. Or maybe he just doesn't feel right – too voyeuristic. Odd. Creepy. Certainly tediously addicted to the sorts of injokes that some people like to use to keep others on the outside. It's not hard to get the hint you're not part of the cool group.
Which isn't a great way to be made to feel if you're reading something. It made every paragraph, every chapter, every page a drag. Constantly being reminded of not getting the joke, by a kid that was making your skin crawl a bit, and about people that frankly were considerably more dreary than anything else. I was bored. And annoyed. The more I got so obsessed with how bored and annoyed I was, I found I was reading just to make myself more and more convinced that I was right to be bored and annoyed. About half way through I found I couldn't even remember who most of the characters were, but I was still bored. And annoyed.
So I threw in the towel on CASEBOOK about three-quarters of the way through. Which is most unusual – normally I can find something. But in this case the voice didn't work, the characters weren't interesting, likeable, identifiable or understandable and their path to salvation was definitely not heading in my direction.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-casebook-mona-simpson
The idea behind it was part of the problem – a young boy eavesdropping on his family as his parent's marriage falls apart. It feels therefore like it's going to be very personal. Devastating even. Unfortunately the storytelling relies heavily on the stream-of-conscious voice of young Miles – who frankly – doesn't feel “real”. Or maybe he just doesn't feel right – too voyeuristic. Odd. Creepy. Certainly tediously addicted to the sorts of injokes that some people like to use to keep others on the outside. It's not hard to get the hint you're not part of the cool group.
Which isn't a great way to be made to feel if you're reading something. It made every paragraph, every chapter, every page a drag. Constantly being reminded of not getting the joke, by a kid that was making your skin crawl a bit, and about people that frankly were considerably more dreary than anything else. I was bored. And annoyed. The more I got so obsessed with how bored and annoyed I was, I found I was reading just to make myself more and more convinced that I was right to be bored and annoyed. About half way through I found I couldn't even remember who most of the characters were, but I was still bored. And annoyed.
So I threw in the towel on CASEBOOK about three-quarters of the way through. Which is most unusual – normally I can find something. But in this case the voice didn't work, the characters weren't interesting, likeable, identifiable or understandable and their path to salvation was definitely not heading in my direction.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-casebook-mona-simpson
emiliedoleshel's review
3.0
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It had potential and I liked the perspective written by the son, Miles. But I was frustrated for the family and for Miles. Maybe that was the point.
dizzybell06's review
1.0
This book was really hard to get through, but I continued to read it because I was interested in what would happen. The story really picked up and got interesting around the last 100 pages, but other than that it wasn't very good. I feel like there was a lot of wasted time and irrelevant material. The book was a little hard to follow as characters appeared and disappeared without much clarification. I didn't like the weird nicknames for the characters either. I liked the way the book was broken into small manageable sections, but this also didn't help the book flow well as the sections talked about random things that didn't really seem to connect and made it hard to figure out what the time frame was. Casebook turned out very differently from the way the summary presented it. Miles interest in his mothers private life was also a little creepy.
jbeimler's review
5.0
Favorite book this year. Not sure how to describe it, but it rang true all the way through, even with the slightly off kilter plot twists.
emjay2021's review
3.0
Casebook is an odd duck. I liked parts of it but found it dragged on at the end. I figured out the deception at the heart of the plot early on, and felt that the book went on for too long after the big reveal. I did like Miles's voice (and the work of the audiobook narrator), and parts of the book were funny and touching. It was just kind of uneven. I wonder if I would have liked it better if I had read it rather than listened to it--apparently there are illustrations. +1 for the book cover design--it's part of the reason I chose it for my Audible download this month.
manaledi's review
3.0
This book covers the arc of a friendship and the analysis of marriage and parental relationships. With some interesting aspects, it was overall not memorable.
wolfsonarchitect's review
4.0
I greatly enjoyed this book. The teenage narrator’s voice is engaging as he spies on his mother as she goes through a divorce. I am interested in the perspective of some of the other characters but that would have been another book.