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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-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:
Yes
This is another book that I think I should have read rather than listened to. The story has funny, poignant parts. The characters are interesting. The plot is good. But it felt "eh" to me.
I returned this one early! It moves so slow and develops the characters in a way that doesn’t really make me care about them.
reflective
slow-paced
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was tough to get through. I wish I could like it and see it for the brilliance that others see in it from their reviews, but I just struggled to connect with the story and the characters. I felt like it was a lot of repetition as far as dialogue and characters went. What the book started out focusing on became almost an afterthought, it seemed. While I liked how the stories fit together in the end, it still didn’t feel like a resolution. It was confusing at times, it was hard to really care for the characters, and the plot felt scattered. I had to really push myself to see it through.
A few months in the lives of people living in the projects in Manhattan - ambitious young drug dealers, old people, church people, a cop. Their stories intersect as a couple of people look for something. Not my usual fare, but McBride unfurls the characters' stories so lovingly that I was hooked. Cleverly done, and sweet. I was surprised and happy to find out the author wrote the memoir The Color of Water.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was the book I needed right now without knowing it ahead of time. James McBride does an amazing job of creating portraits of diverse, complicated, and resilient communities. This book has so many well thought out characters and plot lines. It feels chaotic at first, which seems very intentional given the unreliable narrator(s), but all the different plot intricacies dovetail so well in the end.
I found this book to have more humor than some of his other works, and in a time of unrest the kind of humor this book conveys is much needed. It’s not a quick book, and there are a lot of characters and plot lines to keep up with, but it was a book I enjoyed sitting down with everyday for awhile.
I found this book to have more humor than some of his other works, and in a time of unrest the kind of humor this book conveys is much needed. It’s not a quick book, and there are a lot of characters and plot lines to keep up with, but it was a book I enjoyed sitting down with everyday for awhile.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes