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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
Higher Education meets Catcher in the Rye meets Hallmark movie. Like a Reuben, I don't particularly enjoy any of those pieces on their own (in fact, I detest Catcher in the Rye), but together they make a great story. Like Higher Education it is a story of small town basketball but with a deeper mining of the idiosyncrasies and pain of the individuals involved. Despite the over the top Hallmark moments, the story pieces together a masterful mosaic of personalities and the telling of different basketball games from different participants/spectators' viewpoints was masterful. There isn't any mystery or unpredictability in this story, in fact you can see every plot point coming, but that just highlights that sometimes the how is more important than the what in the telling of a story. Worth the read. Pick it up off the shelf.
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a small-town 6-member basketball team making a run for the state basketball title. The characters are well developed and you quickly feel a part of this small, dying town and it's Cinderella team.
2 1/2 stars. 21 days and 539 pages later, I finally finished this slow-moving tome. The effort expended to just get through the thing was too much for me to have any left over to write a real review.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A "western fiction" about basketball is about as far away from what I'd normally read as you can get. This book was recommended to me as a "feel good story" and it sure is. I found myself smiling throughout and whole heartedly rooting for the Broncs.
It doesn't really matter whether the team wins (although there is a lot of basketball in the last 150 or so pages). This is a story about quirky characters and turbulent relationships in the 90's.
Willow Creek is a tiny ghost town where adults go when they are running away, and where teenagers can't seem to escape. Everyone has a story (or a secret). The characters are well developed and likeable; complete with a parrot and 3 legged cat. It's really a story about love and perseverance.
I'm rating it a 4.5, only because of the length. It could have been shorter if some stories were cut out or with less play by play, but I loved all the stories and I don't know who's story could be cut.
The book is long, sappy, unrealistic, and sometimes politically incorrect. It's filled with what many would call "purple prose", and quotes from Don Quixote, and yet I loved it all.
If you can, listen to the audiobook to get the full play by play effect.
Trigger warning: There is a dead horse scene in CH 34 that is difficult for animal lovers, and a cancer story in the last half. Both are short but relevant.
It doesn't really matter whether the team wins (although there is a lot of basketball in the last 150 or so pages). This is a story about quirky characters and turbulent relationships in the 90's.
Willow Creek is a tiny ghost town where adults go when they are running away, and where teenagers can't seem to escape. Everyone has a story (or a secret). The characters are well developed and likeable; complete with a parrot and 3 legged cat. It's really a story about love and perseverance.
I'm rating it a 4.5, only because of the length. It could have been shorter if some stories were cut out or with less play by play, but I loved all the stories and I don't know who's story could be cut.
The book is long, sappy, unrealistic, and sometimes politically incorrect. It's filled with what many would call "purple prose", and quotes from Don Quixote, and yet I loved it all.
If you can, listen to the audiobook to get the full play by play effect.
Trigger warning: There is a dead horse scene in CH 34 that is difficult for animal lovers, and a cancer story in the last half. Both are short but relevant.
I am stunned by all the four and five star ratings on this book. While I didn't hate it, it wasn't a five star book. The author was a decent storyteller, but took on too many stories in a novel that was way too long--yet ended abruptly. The characters were interesting enough, yet it was difficult to care about so many in such detail. I appreciated the basketball/underdog story, but the play by play for every single game because tedious in the midst of all the other melodrama. Is this a basketball story or a love story? A novel about redemption or a novel about small towns? It's all of those. I think West could have benefitted from an editor on this one. In addition, I found his writing stilted and consumed by similes. By the time I had invested 500 pages on these characters, the ending was unsatisfying. I don't need a tidy ending, but I do like some resolution--good or bad. I didn't find it in this novel.
Good happens, every morning that the sun rises, every night that the moon shines, every moment that the earth turns. And if you're brave enough to look in the elephant's eye, you see, finally, that behind the sadness there is joy.
This is one of those feel-good stories that ropes you in and somehow leaves you feeling a little more optimistic about life, your fellow humans, and society in general. It's a western small-town basketball underdog story with a spicy budding romance. I liked it more than I expected to. It is way longer than it needs to be though - and as with most feel-good underdog stories, there's a lot that's convenient (read: probably unrealistic.)
Worth the read.
This is one of those feel-good stories that ropes you in and somehow leaves you feeling a little more optimistic about life, your fellow humans, and society in general. It's a western small-town basketball underdog story with a spicy budding romance. I liked it more than I expected to. It is way longer than it needs to be though - and as with most feel-good underdog stories, there's a lot that's convenient (read: probably unrealistic.)
Worth the read.
This book captured me from the first chapter and kept me intrigued until the end. Loved the setting and felt like I would love to visit this little town. Inspirational and emotional and funny. A must read in my opinion.
The characters are the biggest strength in this book. None are flat or static. I enjoyed it, though I did skim through some of the games. Out of 554 pages, there were only so many play-by-play scenes I could get engrossed in. I liked the book, though, and actually enjoyed the "awe-shucks" aspects.