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watrate's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
tasharobinson's review against another edition
4.0
This is more a 3.5 book. I've been reading through Daniel Woodrell's books this year, since I've had a pile of them on my shelf since shortly after Winter's Bone became a movie and his back library was published in a series of new, matching editions. I tend to find his stories a little wandering and aimless (apart from Winter's Bone itself, which ends perfectly), but you just can't beat the language — the way his voices vary from book to book, and the way they fit whatever narrative and setting he's calling up. Here, the protagonist is a 30-ish Missouri author who comes from a rough, poor white-trash family who still define his identity much more than anyone he encountered in the literary or collegiate world. That's what makes his voice so interesting as a character — he's a well-executed blend of education and backwoods belligerence, capable of deft self-analysis and of doing incredibly stupid, impulsive things because he wants to impress his family, or because he believes those impulses are naturally in his blood.
The storyline is a ramshackle thing about going to see his older brother, finding him engaged in a lucrative pot-growing scheme, and getting sexually involved with a beautiful young woman with Hollywood ambitions. But this isn't a book to read for the machinations of plot, so much as for luxuriating in expressions like "Been gettin' ham fat and dollar strong," and "I learned him several things about hurt." What I'm finding out about Woodrell is that even when I'm not much objectively interested in the worlds his characters inhabit — which tend to be violent, ignorant, impulsive, criminal worlds — he can draw me in with colorful writing and a nose for telling detail.
The storyline is a ramshackle thing about going to see his older brother, finding him engaged in a lucrative pot-growing scheme, and getting sexually involved with a beautiful young woman with Hollywood ambitions. But this isn't a book to read for the machinations of plot, so much as for luxuriating in expressions like "Been gettin' ham fat and dollar strong," and "I learned him several things about hurt." What I'm finding out about Woodrell is that even when I'm not much objectively interested in the worlds his characters inhabit — which tend to be violent, ignorant, impulsive, criminal worlds — he can draw me in with colorful writing and a nose for telling detail.
liznc's review against another edition
2.0
Country noir set in the Ozarks and while I enjoyed the peek into hillbilly life, slang and generational feuds( I love the term “hillbillyette”) the story was just ok for me. I felt no attachment to any of the characters.
dave37's review against another edition
5.0
Definitely more light-hearted than the rest of Woodrell's books. There's still poverty, drugs, alcohol and crime in the Ozarks, but there's also an almost joyous resignation to the folly of it all. I really enjoyed the change-up.
bundy23's review against another edition
2.0
I'm pretty sure this is the 2nd time I've "reviewed" a Daniel Woodrell novel my calling it Cormac McCarthy for young adults.
I didn't believe any of the characters, the plot was ridiculous and the ending was laughably bad. It was an easy read though.
I didn't believe any of the characters, the plot was ridiculous and the ending was laughably bad. It was an easy read though.
neven's review against another edition
4.0
Nasty and funny as heck, fast-moving and smart. I love a glitz-free crime book with a highly specific setting, and this is IT.
nadinekc's review against another edition
3.0
Not quite as good as Winter's Bone or Tomato Red (which couldn't have been better in my eyes) but still the same great Ozark atmospherics and way with language. The female leads didn't ring as true to me as Rhee Dolly did in W'sB and I had trouble buying Doyle Redmond as a novel-writing redneck, even though he's loosely based on the author's own life. On the other hand this book had more of of his great wry humor. I'll read everything he writes.
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