Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
not really sure why this won the Booker Prize. The book to me seemed slow to start and didn't really come together until the second half that focuses on Rosaleen. it all seemed so very earnest. not a bad book but not a great one eithern
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Beautifully written and masterfully constructed, this is a novel about how we cannot escape our families, or ourselves.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was going to rate this book 3 stars but the ending...oh, it was awful! Maybe the worst ending of any book I've ever read. The book was rather dull anyway but still...that ending! Not worth the time I put into it, unfortunately.
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My overriding impression here was that the quality of the writing deserved a much better novel. It certainly deserved more engaging characters. The Green Road is about a dysfunctional Irish family with chapters alternating between the five members. Often this form of structure causes problems because some characters are almost always much more interesting than others and this is very much the case here. The two daughters I found especially lacking in compelling detail.
It begins with Hanna and there's little that distinguishes this novel from so many others - the overly familiar middle class domestic setting didn't pack any punches. It felt like the same old story told yet again. Then there's a big surprise as the novel jumps to AIDS infested New York. The problem here is that the family member, Dan, barely features at all and the narrative centres on characters who have no place in this novel. This chapter was like some weird incongruous outbuilding in the novel's architecture. We then go to Africa and the relationship between the younger son Emmet and his girlfriend Alice, both aid workers. This was by a country mile the best chapter of the novel and showed how good a novel Anne Enright might write if, instead of the tired old subject of a dysfunctional middle class family, she had been more consistently adventurous in her choice of theme and material. One interesting aspect of the Emmet and Alice conflict was that it marginally came out on the side of the male. It made me realise how often in modern novels the male is shown as the guilty party in the battle of sexes. It was refreshing to have a more balanced perspective. We then switch to Constance, the most conventional of the children and unfortunately the least interesting as well. At the heart of the novel though is the mother who is thinking of selling the family home. Everything comes to a head at a family Christmas dinner. But the gains and losses, the estrangements and reconciliations all seemed very minimal to me as if there really wasn't much of a story here in the first place. Saving grace is that Anne Enright can write a good sentence.
It begins with Hanna and there's little that distinguishes this novel from so many others - the overly familiar middle class domestic setting didn't pack any punches. It felt like the same old story told yet again. Then there's a big surprise as the novel jumps to AIDS infested New York. The problem here is that the family member, Dan, barely features at all and the narrative centres on characters who have no place in this novel. This chapter was like some weird incongruous outbuilding in the novel's architecture. We then go to Africa and the relationship between the younger son Emmet and his girlfriend Alice, both aid workers. This was by a country mile the best chapter of the novel and showed how good a novel Anne Enright might write if, instead of the tired old subject of a dysfunctional middle class family, she had been more consistently adventurous in her choice of theme and material. One interesting aspect of the Emmet and Alice conflict was that it marginally came out on the side of the male. It made me realise how often in modern novels the male is shown as the guilty party in the battle of sexes. It was refreshing to have a more balanced perspective. We then switch to Constance, the most conventional of the children and unfortunately the least interesting as well. At the heart of the novel though is the mother who is thinking of selling the family home. Everything comes to a head at a family Christmas dinner. But the gains and losses, the estrangements and reconciliations all seemed very minimal to me as if there really wasn't much of a story here in the first place. Saving grace is that Anne Enright can write a good sentence.