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3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
Technically this book wasn't "abandoned" because I had to read it to review it. But I would have quit if I could have. It's a long, long slog through a young woman's life that could have been interesting had it a) been more tightly written, b) been better written, and c) had a protagonist that cared enough about her life to make you care about it too.
It’s a novel, but it’s written more like a memoir, particularly in the earlier high-school parts, with Pearls of Wisdom and Insightful Observations on nearly every page. The thing is, though, pretty much anyone who’s been through high school heartbreak, loss, uncertainty about the future and messy relationships knows these things. Popular kids are mean. Drugs can mess people up. Loving the wrong person can mess people up. The rich really are different. Life isn’t fair.
Pages go by without anything much happening; people have rambling conversations that never get to a point. 600 pages isn’t too many if there’s something compelling me to turn them, but mix the plodding pace and numb narrator of “Anthropology” with clunky writing (for instance, “the train ambled into the station and landed on its chin like an exhausted bovine”) and 600 pages is mighty long indeed.
It’s a novel, but it’s written more like a memoir, particularly in the earlier high-school parts, with Pearls of Wisdom and Insightful Observations on nearly every page. The thing is, though, pretty much anyone who’s been through high school heartbreak, loss, uncertainty about the future and messy relationships knows these things. Popular kids are mean. Drugs can mess people up. Loving the wrong person can mess people up. The rich really are different. Life isn’t fair.
Pages go by without anything much happening; people have rambling conversations that never get to a point. 600 pages isn’t too many if there’s something compelling me to turn them, but mix the plodding pace and numb narrator of “Anthropology” with clunky writing (for instance, “the train ambled into the station and landed on its chin like an exhausted bovine”) and 600 pages is mighty long indeed.
If Henry James and Margaret Attwood could have a literary child, it might be Hilary Thayer Hamann. Evoking James’ Portrait of a Lady or Daisy Miller, and Atwood’s Surfacing, Hamann’s debut novel Anthropology of an American Girl poetically, and brutally, follows the seemingly ordinary but at once riveting life of narrator and protagonist Evaline with obsessive detail and powerful insight. It is a modern coming-of-age epic which brings to light this complex and artistic young woman, and it is very much (as the promotion for the book reads) “not for girls.” Hamman’s examination of moral character, and the intimate relationships through which power is exercised well or badly, is the centerpiece around which the mesmerizing, though at times terrifyingly commonplace, plot revolves. Eveline’s voice is almost impossibly and authentically observant, resonant and driven; her nuanced phrasing and painstaking scrutiny propelling the reader through thickly-woven vignettes of memory and experience, consciousness and perception; through the loss of love, the degradation of violence, and, in the end, the essence of hope through the human universal need for connection.
Oof. I got through about 3/4 and had to stop. It read like an anthropology, really. Too much detail, almost too much substance. Like trying to cram everything you know into one doorstop of a tome. The self-publishing angle of this book would be enough to recommend to more serious readers.
I knew I'd found a jewel within a few pages. If I could give this six stars, I would have. I loved this so much. It's Updike's Rabbit novels for women... seriously. Updike, Salinger, all of them featuring men having these tortured, drug and sex filled youths, and in this novel women have an intelligent, emotive coming of age story. A reviewer compared her sentences with Henry James (I didn't even mean to read all of these James-a-like books at once), and I think that's a respectable comment. They are so lilting and uniquely descriptive. I was reminded sometimes of Sylvia Plath's [b:The Bell Jar|395040|The Bell Jar (P.S.)|Sylvia Plath|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1297266095s/395040.jpg|1385044] protagonist, just slightly less wounded and more lovelorn. I loved the insight into growing up and all of the mistakes that come with it; Hamann's protagonist is very flawed, but her honesty and passion are raw and respectable, just like Hamann's prose.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The main character is a Mary Sue for the ages. The book is beautifully written but the main character is insufferable. Things happen to her; she is not an agent in her own life.
One of the dozens of men who inexplicably fall in love with her says "every man wants the secret of your eyes." The secret is that she's not there. Her flaws include being too beautiful (but not aware of it), too shy, too fragile, too seductive, too unforgettable. Give me a fucking break. The fact that this is semi-autobiographical puts it in a whole new level. I wished this book was about her mother, or Denny, or Rob, or almost any other character besides our "too esoteric for this world" narrator.
Also, the author alludes to Eveline having a chronic illness that somehow does not impact her when her only nourishment for days are glasses of whisky? The unrealistic depiction of having a chronic illness in this society - the fact that Eveline was fawned over when falling into comas and aw shucked for not eating, for years on end, patiently handled with kid gloves by literally everyone she comes into contact with, yet no one seems to love her enough to actually help her.
All that said, I'll probably be thinking about this book for a while.
One of the dozens of men who inexplicably fall in love with her says "every man wants the secret of your eyes." The secret is that she's not there. Her flaws include being too beautiful (but not aware of it), too shy, too fragile, too seductive, too unforgettable. Give me a fucking break. The fact that this is semi-autobiographical puts it in a whole new level. I wished this book was about her mother, or Denny, or Rob, or almost any other character besides our "too esoteric for this world" narrator.
Also, the author alludes to Eveline having a chronic illness that somehow does not impact her when her only nourishment for days are glasses of whisky? The unrealistic depiction of having a chronic illness in this society - the fact that Eveline was fawned over when falling into comas and aw shucked for not eating, for years on end, patiently handled with kid gloves by literally everyone she comes into contact with, yet no one seems to love her enough to actually help her.
All that said, I'll probably be thinking about this book for a while.
This book was beautifully bookended, between these ends are some great insights into human nature and relationships. I couldn't care about the characters though. The title character is much like a leaf floating down a river, a victim of her circumstances, things just happen to her. There might have been more to her than her dysfunctional romantic relationships, but that wasn't really part of the story.
This book is pretty good, but if you want a real Anthropology of an American Girl, just real The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers!
I wanted to like this, but I hated the character, making it almost excruciating reading.
I was blown away by this book. I felt pulled along by the main character's emotions - ached for her first love, felt tingly and confused by her one great love, knew how she felt when she talked to certain people, got in certain cars with certain boys, interacted with her roommate. I had compassion and understanding of her motivations and where I didn't, I felt that it revealed her true character traits rather than clumsy or confusing writing by the author, as can sometimes be the case in stories. As an "american girl" myself, I was drawn to the conclusions that the main character comes to. It's a hard book to describe but I loved it and can't wait to get my own copy and read it again and again.
DNF after 350 pages. I really tried with this book. But it was SO SLOW and honestly I found it boring. Sorry, guys.