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giovannnaz's review against another edition
2.0
Overwritten for my taste--too purposefully eccentric, too self-conscious, too full of quirky 'wisdom'.
kesterbird's review against another edition
3.0
The thing with aiming to write an adult holden Caulfield is that if you succeed, everyone is gonna hate him, and if you fail, you end up with a slightly obnoxious dishrag as your protagonist.
romantical's review against another edition
3.0
Started off strong, but didn't really hold up. Nice turn of phrase and good writing, but could have used a bit stronger thread of story.
torts's review against another edition
2.0
The writing brimmed with a nagging...wrongness. Like:
"His eyes were fixed on Lees Ardor; he had this aroused, glazed look on his face and kept smoothing and stroking his tie, and you didn't have to be an English major or a reader to know what that symbolized."
Does Clarke mean signified? Does he mean for Sam Pulsifier to mean signified but get it wrong in a demonstration of his bumblingness? Or does Clarke not have a great grasp on the difference between symbols and signifiers? Or does he mean something that he's not just very good at communicating? I'm thinking the last one's the most accurate, given the rest of the book...
"The books were all from some library--I could see the telltale laminated tag on the spines. I looked down, lifted my left foot, and saw I'd been standing on a copy of Ethan Frome, a book every eighth grader in Massachusetts since Edith Wharton had written it had been required to read and then wonder why. I kicked the novel away from me, something I'd been wanting to do for twenty-six years, and in doing so I imagined I was striking a blow on behalf of its many unwilling, barely pubescent readers."
Such. Awkward. Prose. Sentences. Need. To. Be. Pruned. (I'm overcompensating by making each of my words its own sentence. Joke?)
"There was no sign naming the place as this bar or that tavern, as if no name were sufficiently bad."
Once again, an ucky rambling sentence where the phrasing is just confusing enough to make you wonder where the subjects and verbs are and whether they got into an argument or something and that's why they're not really interacting like they should in a happy sentence.
There's more kind of ucky writing, but there's also a relatively amusing story buried in it. Along with extreme self-consciousness and bland gesturing toward some sort of greater point which only kind of gets made by the end.
I don't recommend this book. I was going to say at least it's better than Dan Brown, but it's kind of worse. At least The Da Vinci Code pretended to find itself interesting. Clarke can't even muster the enthusiasm for his own book to have its protagonist-narrator commit fully to being its author.
"His eyes were fixed on Lees Ardor; he had this aroused, glazed look on his face and kept smoothing and stroking his tie, and you didn't have to be an English major or a reader to know what that symbolized."
Does Clarke mean signified? Does he mean for Sam Pulsifier to mean signified but get it wrong in a demonstration of his bumblingness? Or does Clarke not have a great grasp on the difference between symbols and signifiers? Or does he mean something that he's not just very good at communicating? I'm thinking the last one's the most accurate, given the rest of the book...
"The books were all from some library--I could see the telltale laminated tag on the spines. I looked down, lifted my left foot, and saw I'd been standing on a copy of Ethan Frome, a book every eighth grader in Massachusetts since Edith Wharton had written it had been required to read and then wonder why. I kicked the novel away from me, something I'd been wanting to do for twenty-six years, and in doing so I imagined I was striking a blow on behalf of its many unwilling, barely pubescent readers."
Such. Awkward. Prose. Sentences. Need. To. Be. Pruned. (I'm overcompensating by making each of my words its own sentence. Joke?)
"There was no sign naming the place as this bar or that tavern, as if no name were sufficiently bad."
Once again, an ucky rambling sentence where the phrasing is just confusing enough to make you wonder where the subjects and verbs are and whether they got into an argument or something and that's why they're not really interacting like they should in a happy sentence.
There's more kind of ucky writing, but there's also a relatively amusing story buried in it. Along with extreme self-consciousness and bland gesturing toward some sort of greater point which only kind of gets made by the end.
I don't recommend this book. I was going to say at least it's better than Dan Brown, but it's kind of worse. At least The Da Vinci Code pretended to find itself interesting. Clarke can't even muster the enthusiasm for his own book to have its protagonist-narrator commit fully to being its author.
kaitlynreadsbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Very interesting premise for a book. I couldn't really relate to the main character, except for the fact that we are both bumblers. He did have a lot of interesting ideas about a lot of things. I don't necessarily agree. But it makes you think. And the ending wasn't very happy. And I like happy endings.
dorkington's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
ldandridge's review
3.0
Meh. This had potential, but just kind of fell flat. I liked the weird quirky aspect of the writing. The plot just didn’t really seem to go anywhere.
moncoinlecture's review
2.0
1,5
J'ai hésité entre 1 et 2... je n'ai juste pas compris le but du roman, ni les décisions... je me suis ennuyée ferme (une semaine pour lire 300 pages)... et je me demande pourquoi j'ai terminé.
J'ai hésité entre 1 et 2... je n'ai juste pas compris le but du roman, ni les décisions... je me suis ennuyée ferme (une semaine pour lire 300 pages)... et je me demande pourquoi j'ai terminé.
tsutrav's review
3.0
I had high hopes for this one. The book begins with a man getting out of prison after serving 20 years for burning down the Emily Dickens house (accidentally killing two people inside). Of course, this rips his current family apart. When he gets out he goes to school, gets married, has kids, etc. But then other famous authors homes start burning up! Is he doing it? How can he clear his name? It's a GREAT plot and story thread.
Unfortunately, for me, there are so many characters involved that we spend time tying to get to know via the narrator's quirky voice and attention span, that it got tiresome.
I think some people may enjoy the "anxious" thinking of the character, but it just got old to me.
If the middle third could have been trimmed down, allowing the great premise and plot to carry me along, I think I would have been a lot happier.
Unfortunately, for me, there are so many characters involved that we spend time tying to get to know via the narrator's quirky voice and attention span, that it got tiresome.
I think some people may enjoy the "anxious" thinking of the character, but it just got old to me.
If the middle third could have been trimmed down, allowing the great premise and plot to carry me along, I think I would have been a lot happier.