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lschoeb's review against another edition
2.0
An OK book, but WAY too long! I am about 400 or 500 pages into it and it's only just now getting to the jist of the story, I'm giving up.
nordstina's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
The Way the Crow Flies is a overly long novel about a mysterious death on a military base during the Cold War. Madeliene is in elementary school and has just moved to the base with her parents and brother after living in Europe. Her father Jack becomes caught up in a secret operation which leads to unforeseen consequences. The propelling plot point is the death which doesn't take place until hundreds of pages into this book. Several red herrings are thrown in and in the end, while I plugged along until the end, I did not find the resolution very rewarding. The book jumps ahead in time towards the end, which did not really serve much of a purpose. For a book of this length, I was expecting a wide sweeping narrative and it did not have much to show for it in the end.
amysbrittain's review against another edition
3.0
I liked MacDonald's writing style and how effortlessly she sets a vivid scene of early 1960s life on a military base in Canada. But it's an almost-700-page book, so I guess something was bound to get on my nerves about it before the end. There's a pivotal, disturbing issue that goes unresolved for way too long, followed by a sudden "Ten years later..." trickery that made me want to scream. But overall I really enjoyed this one.
gripyfish's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
rdebner's review against another edition
5.0
I read this when it first came out, but am rereading for a book club. It's interesting to reread it in the wake of having seen a couple of seasons of "Mad Men," which is set around the same time. Having not read it for so long was like reading it for the first time, as I recalled only the big picture of the novel. MacDonald deftly interweaves the various plot strands -- Madeleine's story in 1962-63, Jack's story in the same time frame, the thread about Dora, and the thread about Claire. The narrative, especially towards the beginning, is somewhat impressionistic, capturing Madeleine's view on the world, which also seems to reflect the Zeitgeist of the early 60s -- all is bright and shiny, anything is possible, progress is wonderful, we still know who "we" and "them" are. She also explores the law of unintended consequences, both in smaller scale and in larger, where the events of that one year had profound ramifications many years into the future for Madeleine's family.
literaryfeline's review against another edition
5.0
http://www.literaryfeline.com/2007/02/way-crow-flies-by-ann-marie-macdonald.html
hangut's review against another edition
5.0
Beautifully written, but very heartbreaking. I wasn't surprised, since I went in being aware of the subject material and what it was based on, but it was a pretty hard read at parts.
kyr_6592's review against another edition
5.0
If you move around all your life, you can’t find where you come from on a map. All those places where you lived are just that: places. You don’t come from any of them; you come from a series of events. And those are mapped in memory. Contingent, precarious events, without the counterpane of place to muffle the knowledge of how unlikely we are. Almost not born at every turn. Without a place, events slow-tumbling through time become your roots. Stories shading into one another. You come from a plane crash. From a war that brought your parents together. Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men...Repeat, and cradle the pieces carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor.
But no matter where they sent him, he would have the sense of a fresh start; the optimism that imbues every change, coupled with his belief that no situation is beyond improving—after all, in the military, change is the only constant.
Jack has devised a couple of rules for himself. Ask before telling. And listen more than you talk. His job is to know what everyone else’s job is, to get everyone pointed in the right direction and then get out of the way.
The idea of growing up in the midst of your own past—among people who have known you all your life and believe they know what you are made of, what you are capable of—that is a suffocating thought.
Though she is at home everywhere and nowhere, there is the occasional sense of having misplaced something, someone.
Afterwards, in bed with a book, the spell of television feels remote compared to the journey into the page. To be in a book. To slip into the crease where two pages meet, to live in the place where your eyes alight upon the words to ignite a world of smoke and peril, colour and serene delight. That is a journey no one can end with the change of a channel. Enduring magic.
There are some stories you can never hear enough. They are the same every time you hear them—but you are not. That’s one reliable me way of understanding time.
It is amazing to think that, while we are at school or asleep or watching TV, the woods are here. Breathing, changing, their stately grace made up of countless frantic lives lived high and low, each rustle and cry part of that sweeping rhythm.
Like an old piece of shrapnel adhering to tissues and vessels—removing it might cause more harm than leaving it to rust and seep. Things have a way of changing when exposed to the air—they rot.
mandi_m's review against another edition
4.0
The writing in this book is amazingly detailed. I initially thought the level of detail was going to be too much but it was beautifully done. The story is heartbreaking and wonderfully evokes the cold war era. I can't wait to hear what the rest of the bookclub think of this one - dealing with child abuse, political ideologies and the death of loved family members are all hot button topics!