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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
Well, this book really is a bit like being in the ocean, at the mercy of the big waves. This story goes where it goes and you have no choice but to go with it. It's plot driven and compelling, and I like its optimism about people pushed to the extreme. I did not find it as literary as I was expecting from other reviews - just a ripping good story, well told. You can almost imagine it being told around a campfire on a beach somewhere.
This is an unassuming little book, the sum of which somehow manages to exceed its parts and become something unexpectedly extraordinary. There's nothing terribly original about this book's premise - a plane crashes, two strangers need to learn how to survive together - but reading [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is like taking a breath of fresh air. I was surprised by how much I loved it.
Barry Bleecker one day decides to leave his corporate Manhattan job and travel to the grave of his favorite painter, Paul Gauguin, which lies somewhere in the Marquesas. French architect and newlywed Sophie Ducel and her husband Étienne are on a honeymoon in French Polynesia, and they decide to take a detour to visit the grave of singer Jacques Brel, incidentally buried a few yards away from Gauguin. When their plane crashes somewhere between Tahiti and the Marquesas, Étienne and the pilot die on impact, leaving only Barry and Sophie to survive on a small island together - which is complicated not only by Sophie's grief, but also by a limited patience and understanding for each other's language and culture.
Dane Huckelbridge's prose is hard to describe. [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is told in third-person omniscient narration which is almost insensitively concise; full of facts and devoid of any sentimentality. This story is also told with a weird, offbeat humor that resists any temptation of melodrama. It's not at all what you'd expect and should theoretically clash with the premise of the story, which invites an onslaught of emotion and introspection. But, somehow, Huckelbridge's approach works. Better than it should, and yet, better than its maudlin alternative. This story isn't heartless, it isn't cold and unfeeling. And it isn't a comedy, either. At its core this is a bitterly, achingly sad story, which managed to both make me laugh out loud and break my heart.
Sure, this book is full of unrealistic conveniences: the survival kit they salvaged from the plane has literally everything they could possibly want; they each have unique survival knowledge that transcends the very basics you'd learn in the boy scouts; there is no universe in which three pairs of contact lenses being worn every single day is going to last a person several years; Sophie is magically able to continue to have her period despite her drastic weight loss and without any mention as to how on earth she dealt with it without an unlimited supply of tampons (this one really bugged me), but getting hung up on these details is to miss the point, because this is so much more than a simple Survival Story. If you want to read 300 pages about people surviving in the elements with nothing but the clothes on their backs, there's plenty of fiction and nonfiction about that already. In giving these characters certain basic necessities, Huckelbridge is bending this story in a different direction, making it less about Survival and more about the characters themselves, how they interact, and how their relationship progresses. [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is first and foremost a story about humanity; about two imperfect strangers drawing on each other's strengths in order to endure - not only to physically survive, but to sustain themselves on a deeper level.
It's hard to communicate what exactly was so special about this book which seems so unremarkable. I can only say that [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is a book with many hidden depths, and it was a joy to read. Though there weren't a lot of surprises, plot-wise, the big surprise was really the emotional reaction these character elicited from me. Barry and Sophie were incredibly sympathetic and complex in their own right - Sophie in particular I grew rather attached to - and I'm sad to be leaving them behind.
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Dane Huckelbridge.
Barry Bleecker one day decides to leave his corporate Manhattan job and travel to the grave of his favorite painter, Paul Gauguin, which lies somewhere in the Marquesas. French architect and newlywed Sophie Ducel and her husband Étienne are on a honeymoon in French Polynesia, and they decide to take a detour to visit the grave of singer Jacques Brel, incidentally buried a few yards away from Gauguin. When their plane crashes somewhere between Tahiti and the Marquesas, Étienne and the pilot die on impact, leaving only Barry and Sophie to survive on a small island together - which is complicated not only by Sophie's grief, but also by a limited patience and understanding for each other's language and culture.
Dane Huckelbridge's prose is hard to describe. [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is told in third-person omniscient narration which is almost insensitively concise; full of facts and devoid of any sentimentality. This story is also told with a weird, offbeat humor that resists any temptation of melodrama. It's not at all what you'd expect and should theoretically clash with the premise of the story, which invites an onslaught of emotion and introspection. But, somehow, Huckelbridge's approach works. Better than it should, and yet, better than its maudlin alternative. This story isn't heartless, it isn't cold and unfeeling. And it isn't a comedy, either. At its core this is a bitterly, achingly sad story, which managed to both make me laugh out loud and break my heart.
Sure, this book is full of unrealistic conveniences: the survival kit they salvaged from the plane has literally everything they could possibly want; they each have unique survival knowledge that transcends the very basics you'd learn in the boy scouts; there is no universe in which three pairs of contact lenses being worn every single day is going to last a person several years; Sophie is magically able to continue to have her period despite her drastic weight loss and without any mention as to how on earth she dealt with it without an unlimited supply of tampons (this one really bugged me), but getting hung up on these details is to miss the point, because this is so much more than a simple Survival Story. If you want to read 300 pages about people surviving in the elements with nothing but the clothes on their backs, there's plenty of fiction and nonfiction about that already. In giving these characters certain basic necessities, Huckelbridge is bending this story in a different direction, making it less about Survival and more about the characters themselves, how they interact, and how their relationship progresses. [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is first and foremost a story about humanity; about two imperfect strangers drawing on each other's strengths in order to endure - not only to physically survive, but to sustain themselves on a deeper level.
It's hard to communicate what exactly was so special about this book which seems so unremarkable. I can only say that [b:Castle of Water|29939086|Castle of Water A Novel|Dane Huckelbridge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1485950228s/29939086.jpg|50329735] is a book with many hidden depths, and it was a joy to read. Though there weren't a lot of surprises, plot-wise, the big surprise was really the emotional reaction these character elicited from me. Barry and Sophie were incredibly sympathetic and complex in their own right - Sophie in particular I grew rather attached to - and I'm sad to be leaving them behind.
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Dane Huckelbridge.
4.5-4.75 Oh this book. So good. So sweet. So sad. So funny. So beautiful. Castaway meets the Odd Couple with great art history, the American Midwest and Paris thrown in. Loved the characters Barry and Sophie plus the unique setting. What a wonderful and touching novel. I hope Mr. Huckelbridge has more stories like this to share.
Going to comment on the ending here so don't read further if you don't want to know my feelings about the ending.
Edited to add that the ending was not my favorite after reflection. I loved the characters so much I wish they had made some different choices. And It had a bit of a Titanic feel to it (plenty of room on the door for both)
Going to comment on the ending here so don't read further if you don't want to know my feelings about the ending.
Edited to add that the ending was not my favorite after reflection. I loved the characters so much I wish they had made some different choices. And It had a bit of a Titanic feel to it (plenty of room on the door for both)
Well, this book really is a bit like being in the ocean, at the mercy of the big waves. This story goes where it goes and you have no choice but to go with it. It's plot driven and compelling, and I like its optimism about people pushed to the extreme. I did not find it as literary as I was expecting from other reviews - just a ripping good story, well told. You can almost imagine it being told around a campfire on a beach somewhere.
Listened on audio. Great narrator that held my attention for an audio book, and that’s hard to do! I absolutely loved the story!!! Highly recommend!!!
4.5 stars. Wow! Amazing, well written, unputdownable, memorable characters, incredible situation....a story of hope, loss, love, adventure, sacrifice, survival....a fav of the year! I read it in one day! A must read! Rated it 4.5 because sometimes the narration seemed a bit impersonal. But rounded it to 5 stars on Goodreads for overall quality, engagement, and readability.
Full review on my blog in a couple of weeks.....readingladies.com
Full review on my blog in a couple of weeks.....readingladies.com
An artist and an architect end up on a deserted island... this book is whimsical and romantic. At times it moves at the pace of life on a deserted island (which is to say a little slow), but the character development builds and builds to create a very emotional end to the story. I enjoyed this one! (side note: I found this kind of similar to Allison Amend's Enchanted Island, but I preferred EI over this)
The premise of this story was total catnip for me: two strangers stranded on a remote deserted island after a plane crash. It's like Castaway but the added dynamic of immediate intimacy with another person with whom you'd have to collaborate to survive. The literal and emotional journey of Sophie and Barry was a roller coaster that I burned through in nearly 48 hours. The banter between the two is written with great wit and tenderness, and I definitely held back a few tears at the end.
Visit Born and Read in Chicago for more reviews and bookish musings.
Visit Born and Read in Chicago for more reviews and bookish musings.
emotional
inspiring
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"The marble is inscribed with a name they don’t recognize- it sounds French, but they’ve seen it before. And as if that weren’t enough, the flowers the man left behind are not flowers at all. Instead, resting atop the grass and loam and dried husks of chestnuts is something bizarre, something out of place, something that they can neither understand nor believe. A single bunch of green bananas."
When Barry and Sophie wash up on the shores of a remote, uninhabited South Pacific island following a plane crash we gain an unadulterated look into the strength of the human spirit and the mystery of the human heart.
"And so it came to pass that two utterly disparate lives happened to overlap: a young architect from Paris’s tenth arrondissement, prematurely widowed at age twenty-eight, and a relatively young banker from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, prematurely retired at age thirty-four, bound together on an uninhabited island some 2,359 miles from Hawaii, 4,622 miles from Chile, and 533 miles from the nearest living soul."
Barry took a close look at his life working nine to five as a banker for Lehman Bros. and realized he was a sheep in wolf’s clothing- his true passion lay in painting, particularly in the paintings of one Paul Gauguin. So he donated the majority of his life savings to The United Way, packed his canvases and oil paints and enough, or so he thought, pairs of contact lenses to ensure that he was able to see the wonders of the French Polynesian islands that so captured his idol and set out for a trip that would alter his path in life forever.
Sophie is newly married to the man of her dreams, Etienne, whom she met while studying architecture at university. Before giving everything to their Parisian architecture firm they decide to take a trip to Tahiti. Sophie suggests they hop over to Marquesas so she can bask in the same sunlight shared years before by Jacques Brel, a singer she greatly admires. But circumstance, and a pilot with an obscene drinking problem, drastically alter this itinerary and Sophie’s future.
"Their only hope, and a dwindling hope it was, was that someone out there might still find them or that the ships that passed near the island might someday return. The uncertainty of it all was sickening, almost poisonous in its intensity."
Armed with an impressive set of skills from Barry’s days in Boy Scouts and working on his family’s Midwestern farm and Sophie’s lessons with her grandfather in the Pyrenees and her training as an architect and plenty of green, starchy bananas they are theoretically prepared to survive life as castaways. That is, except for one major flaw: they cannot agree on even the most simplest of things, and it is that discord that may lead them closer to the dire end that looms ahead, seemingly as inescapable as the very island itself. When a tropical storm beats down upon the miniature island, ripping their precious bananas from the trees, they are forced to face their inevitable fate- die apart or join together to survive.
"A surge of seawater caught them knee-deep as the cleared the sand and entered into the palms, all of which were bowed and thrashing in the storm. For once, Sophie didn’t argue and Barry didn’t question- they both simple ran, legitimately terrified by what was happening around them."
What they didn’t expect while sheltering inside a rocky mountain crevice was to find within the other person a soul that perfectly matched their own, as if they had been waiting all this time to end up on a deserted island, free of life’s endless distractions, to focus on the love they were meant to experience. And experience it they do, with a fullness born of their isolation, of their desperation for human contact and for salvation.
"Although it was never spoken, there was a mutual understanding that without the other, neither would have survived alone on the island. Their relationship was the bulb that burned on in the darkness; their love was the rigging that kept the sails intact. And they didn’t need a preacher or priest or an until death do us part to place benediction upon that which was abundantly clear."
Castle of Water is first and foremost an adventure tale, reminiscent of similar classic stories and their authors, but with modern twists and a vivid prose all its own. The escapades of Barry and his unavoidable contact lens mishaps provide a lightness that floats the plot along at a steady clip while the romance between him and Sophie serves as an anchor that grounds the story in human experience until the heartbreaking conclusion.
"After all, how did her do it? How did they do it? What does it take to not only survive such a thing, but then live the rest of your life with that thing inside you?"
www.readvoraciously.com
When Barry and Sophie wash up on the shores of a remote, uninhabited South Pacific island following a plane crash we gain an unadulterated look into the strength of the human spirit and the mystery of the human heart.
"And so it came to pass that two utterly disparate lives happened to overlap: a young architect from Paris’s tenth arrondissement, prematurely widowed at age twenty-eight, and a relatively young banker from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, prematurely retired at age thirty-four, bound together on an uninhabited island some 2,359 miles from Hawaii, 4,622 miles from Chile, and 533 miles from the nearest living soul."
Barry took a close look at his life working nine to five as a banker for Lehman Bros. and realized he was a sheep in wolf’s clothing- his true passion lay in painting, particularly in the paintings of one Paul Gauguin. So he donated the majority of his life savings to The United Way, packed his canvases and oil paints and enough, or so he thought, pairs of contact lenses to ensure that he was able to see the wonders of the French Polynesian islands that so captured his idol and set out for a trip that would alter his path in life forever.
Sophie is newly married to the man of her dreams, Etienne, whom she met while studying architecture at university. Before giving everything to their Parisian architecture firm they decide to take a trip to Tahiti. Sophie suggests they hop over to Marquesas so she can bask in the same sunlight shared years before by Jacques Brel, a singer she greatly admires. But circumstance, and a pilot with an obscene drinking problem, drastically alter this itinerary and Sophie’s future.
"Their only hope, and a dwindling hope it was, was that someone out there might still find them or that the ships that passed near the island might someday return. The uncertainty of it all was sickening, almost poisonous in its intensity."
Armed with an impressive set of skills from Barry’s days in Boy Scouts and working on his family’s Midwestern farm and Sophie’s lessons with her grandfather in the Pyrenees and her training as an architect and plenty of green, starchy bananas they are theoretically prepared to survive life as castaways. That is, except for one major flaw: they cannot agree on even the most simplest of things, and it is that discord that may lead them closer to the dire end that looms ahead, seemingly as inescapable as the very island itself. When a tropical storm beats down upon the miniature island, ripping their precious bananas from the trees, they are forced to face their inevitable fate- die apart or join together to survive.
"A surge of seawater caught them knee-deep as the cleared the sand and entered into the palms, all of which were bowed and thrashing in the storm. For once, Sophie didn’t argue and Barry didn’t question- they both simple ran, legitimately terrified by what was happening around them."
What they didn’t expect while sheltering inside a rocky mountain crevice was to find within the other person a soul that perfectly matched their own, as if they had been waiting all this time to end up on a deserted island, free of life’s endless distractions, to focus on the love they were meant to experience. And experience it they do, with a fullness born of their isolation, of their desperation for human contact and for salvation.
"Although it was never spoken, there was a mutual understanding that without the other, neither would have survived alone on the island. Their relationship was the bulb that burned on in the darkness; their love was the rigging that kept the sails intact. And they didn’t need a preacher or priest or an until death do us part to place benediction upon that which was abundantly clear."
Castle of Water is first and foremost an adventure tale, reminiscent of similar classic stories and their authors, but with modern twists and a vivid prose all its own. The escapades of Barry and his unavoidable contact lens mishaps provide a lightness that floats the plot along at a steady clip while the romance between him and Sophie serves as an anchor that grounds the story in human experience until the heartbreaking conclusion.
"After all, how did her do it? How did they do it? What does it take to not only survive such a thing, but then live the rest of your life with that thing inside you?"
www.readvoraciously.com