Scan barcode
wordnerdy's review against another edition
4.0
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2011/04/2011-book-89.html
sireno8's review against another edition
4.0
An odd but effecting book. The author has a real gift for visual imagery and the characters he's crafty are quirky and endearing without becoming boondocks eccentrics mired in their own folksiness. I appreciated how the main story was told by telling many many side stories-though this penchant for fascinating tangents could occasionally become confusing. Also the story acknowledges and observes its dark places at times but never wallows or exploits them. I finished the book with an odd sense of nostalgia--like having visited a small town in which i had some interesting cousins that I finally got to catch up with.
suzze's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting characters, interesting storylines, and an enjoyable read....until the end. None of the storylines was wrapped up, and I ended up feeling totally unsatisfied.
an_enthusiastic_reader's review against another edition
5.0
A slim novel, essentially a distillation of the idea that we all we want is to be remembered. The novel's characters are alive in the story. A pure joy to read.
Annotated bibliography of the Miranda & Desiree novels.
Annotated bibliography of the Miranda & Desiree novels.
carka88's review against another edition
3.0
What a crazy, colorful cast of characters. It was unlike anything I've read -- at least in recent memory -- and the writing was beautiful.
khoerner7's review against another edition
3.0
This is another one I have mixed feelings about. I loved the characters and pacing of the 3 page chapters but I just wasn't sure what the story was suppose to be. It was in part about the 80 something year old obituary writer Essie Myles, her family and their newspaper. It was also the story of a crime and a missing little girl who may or may not have ever existed.
mholles's review against another edition
3.0
For a first book it wasn't bad. But I was disappointed. The author is from NE, and the story is set in NE, so I was expecting a better sense of place. I could have been reading about Main or Oklahoma. I liked Essie and her family, but it was hard to tell if the story was about them or about Lenore the "missing girl". The writing style, with the short chapters, was more mystery/thriller, but the plot and characters felt more literary, so it wasn't a smooth read.
helena_basket's review against another edition
4.0
There are some things I liked very much about this book, while other parts left me rather meh. It took me a while to get into it but when I did it only took me 2 days to read the whole thing.
My favorite things:
Essie - she is a true character. She knows who she is and makes no apologies.
The description of God. While I am agnostic, what was said (and I will not attempt to sum up, I don't want to ruin it for anyone) makes perfect sense.
My favorite things:
Essie - she is a true character. She knows who she is and makes no apologies.
The description of God. While I am agnostic, what was said (and I will not attempt to sum up, I don't want to ruin it for anyone) makes perfect sense.
sdriscoll05's review against another edition
5.0
“The Coffins of Little Hope” by Timothy Schaffert was an incredible story. Some could argue about the ending, but this book was so much more than just its ending, that I don’t think it would reasonable or fair of a reader to simply sum it up but its ambiguousness. Reading the very first sentence I was hooked, and in vain, trying to find another sentence to quote that I loved as much as that first one, I couldn’t. So, in the same stance of Nancy Pearl, who I took this recommendation from, I have to share it.
“I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need those keys to sometimes catch so I can reach in and untangle them, turning my fingertips inky. Without slapping the return or turning the cylinder to release the paper with a sharp whip, without all that minor havoc, I feel I’ve paid no respect to the dead. What good is an obituary if it can be written so peaceably, so undisturbingly, in the dark of night?”
I mean, holy hell, that’s a good first sentence. This book is about an obit writer and her family, or the family that she is trying to keep together, or that is trying to keep itself together. The plot moves along with the introduction of a neighbor who loses her daughter, and the towns’ fascination with whether this daughter ever existed in the first place. To be honest, this book doesn’t even need a plot line. The reader could sit at dinner with this family and listen to them talk for hours, for the entire story. It reminds me a little bit of John Grisham’s monster of a book, “The Last Juror” for its resemblance to small town life, and, if done right, how incredibly intriguing that can seem.
This book was dark, and lightly funny and it was sad. I was amazed to look at the cover and see that the author was a male, because he nailed the voice of the female protagonist. If anything this book is a high piece of literary fiction that reads like a lurid mystery. You’ll go through it quick, and wish that it were much, much longer.
“I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need those keys to sometimes catch so I can reach in and untangle them, turning my fingertips inky. Without slapping the return or turning the cylinder to release the paper with a sharp whip, without all that minor havoc, I feel I’ve paid no respect to the dead. What good is an obituary if it can be written so peaceably, so undisturbingly, in the dark of night?”
I mean, holy hell, that’s a good first sentence. This book is about an obit writer and her family, or the family that she is trying to keep together, or that is trying to keep itself together. The plot moves along with the introduction of a neighbor who loses her daughter, and the towns’ fascination with whether this daughter ever existed in the first place. To be honest, this book doesn’t even need a plot line. The reader could sit at dinner with this family and listen to them talk for hours, for the entire story. It reminds me a little bit of John Grisham’s monster of a book, “The Last Juror” for its resemblance to small town life, and, if done right, how incredibly intriguing that can seem.
This book was dark, and lightly funny and it was sad. I was amazed to look at the cover and see that the author was a male, because he nailed the voice of the female protagonist. If anything this book is a high piece of literary fiction that reads like a lurid mystery. You’ll go through it quick, and wish that it were much, much longer.
athira's review against another edition
2.0
In a little town in Nebraska, octogenarian Esther Myles, or Essie or simply S writes obituaries for the town newspaper, the County Paragraph - not unemotional little sentences listing the dead, but very personal notes characterizing the dead person well enough to provide a nice semblance of who or how the person was alive. Her grandson, Doc, owns the newspaper that was originally started by her father. Doc's sister, Ivy, who ran away with her college professor, when her daughter Tiffany was seven, has just returned back to the household. In this sleepy town, around the same time, a girl named Lenore goes missing, or is at least claimed to have gone missing. Lenore's mother, Daisy, stumbles into a church gathering one day and wails that her daughter has been kidnapped by her lover. As news about Lenore going missing grips the town, there is another major event happening - the publishing of the eleventh and last book of the immensely popular Miranda and Desiree series.
I'm going to be in the minority here, but this book just didn't do it for me. I'm guessing it's not because of the book itself but rather related to my reading experience, because the book in itself has elements that I usually enjoy. The Coffins of Little Hope is more a set of stories strung together than a holistic plotline coursing through the pages. I usually enjoy such books - I find them closest to the experience of life, which is never singular but rather several strands merging and veining together. But for some reason, when I started this book, I had the assumption that this is going to be all about Essie and the missing girl, Lenore, so the first diversion in the storyline had me very confused about the relevance of events.
At the core, this book is about a small town and how it responds to suddenly being in the spotlight. There are several micro and macro events happening, and Essie has convenient access to them all. There's the missing girl, the publication of the much-awaited book, and then later, someone reading from a purported copy of the same yet-to-be-released book - a lot of things that suddenly catapult the town to the minds of people across the country. The whole mystery of the missing girl delves around the public confusion over whether the girl really existed or if she was a figment of Daisy's imagination. I'm not sure I managed to figure that out at the end. Daisy didn't seem to want to try and help the police establish Lenore's identity, instead she takes offence at the mistrust and chooses not to beg for help.
There are a lot of flashbacks in this story. Or rather, stories from a time that's not current are being shared as well, in a non-flashback manner. I found that occasionally confusing my timeline. It didn't help that I was reading this book mostly on my phone, and I found it annoying having to go back and recollect when certain events were happening. I wish I could reread this one on print, maybe I will some day. (I have previously read and loved a few books I read on my phone - [b:The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life|7997697|The Good Daughter A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life|Jasmin Darznik|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1278974248s/7997697.jpg|12506109], [b:The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe|8584913|The Dressmaker of Khair Khana Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe|Gayle Tzemach Lemmon|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1279213493s/8584913.jpg|13454225], and [b:Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb|9886971|Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb|George Rabasa|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eDX3-hWML._SL75_.jpg|14778942], so this book just wasn't meant for phone reading.)
I thought the author's writing style was wonderful - a very NY Times-worthy writing style. I loved his many descriptions and narrative devices that he used. The Miranda and Desiree books that are often referenced sound very much like the Harry Potter series, in that the whole world is waiting for the last book, the publication of the books is a very controlled and secret affair, the author is slightly reclusive letting the books do the talking, the storm in the fanfiction kingdom where many have attempted to write the events of the last book. The similarities were deliberate and I could actually imagine the author having a quiet chuckle as he wrote those passages. I loved how they were worked into the story. The books' author, Muscatine, is another principle character of the book, as he corresponds with Essie (secretly) through letters. I found him increasingly mysterious, the more I read of him.
There are a lot of quirky characters in this book and several plotlines running. The one I most wanted to keep reading about was Essie's own family troubles. Essie and her great-granddaughter, Tiff, had such a wonderful relationship that it made me wish for someone like Essie in my life. Tiff's struggle with adapting to her "new" life with Ivy was delicately handled. I'm sure there's so much to enjoy in this book, I just felt there was too much happening and in the end I couldn't get much closure. I do recommend this book however, because it really is an interesting read. Just don't do it on your smart phone. It's also not the kind of book you should read snippets at a time. Both could ruin your experience, as it did mine.
I'm going to be in the minority here, but this book just didn't do it for me. I'm guessing it's not because of the book itself but rather related to my reading experience, because the book in itself has elements that I usually enjoy. The Coffins of Little Hope is more a set of stories strung together than a holistic plotline coursing through the pages. I usually enjoy such books - I find them closest to the experience of life, which is never singular but rather several strands merging and veining together. But for some reason, when I started this book, I had the assumption that this is going to be all about Essie and the missing girl, Lenore, so the first diversion in the storyline had me very confused about the relevance of events.
At the core, this book is about a small town and how it responds to suddenly being in the spotlight. There are several micro and macro events happening, and Essie has convenient access to them all. There's the missing girl, the publication of the much-awaited book, and then later, someone reading from a purported copy of the same yet-to-be-released book - a lot of things that suddenly catapult the town to the minds of people across the country. The whole mystery of the missing girl delves around the public confusion over whether the girl really existed or if she was a figment of Daisy's imagination. I'm not sure I managed to figure that out at the end. Daisy didn't seem to want to try and help the police establish Lenore's identity, instead she takes offence at the mistrust and chooses not to beg for help.
There are a lot of flashbacks in this story. Or rather, stories from a time that's not current are being shared as well, in a non-flashback manner. I found that occasionally confusing my timeline. It didn't help that I was reading this book mostly on my phone, and I found it annoying having to go back and recollect when certain events were happening. I wish I could reread this one on print, maybe I will some day. (I have previously read and loved a few books I read on my phone - [b:The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life|7997697|The Good Daughter A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life|Jasmin Darznik|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1278974248s/7997697.jpg|12506109], [b:The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe|8584913|The Dressmaker of Khair Khana Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe|Gayle Tzemach Lemmon|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1279213493s/8584913.jpg|13454225], and [b:Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb|9886971|Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb|George Rabasa|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eDX3-hWML._SL75_.jpg|14778942], so this book just wasn't meant for phone reading.)
I thought the author's writing style was wonderful - a very NY Times-worthy writing style. I loved his many descriptions and narrative devices that he used. The Miranda and Desiree books that are often referenced sound very much like the Harry Potter series, in that the whole world is waiting for the last book, the publication of the books is a very controlled and secret affair, the author is slightly reclusive letting the books do the talking, the storm in the fanfiction kingdom where many have attempted to write the events of the last book. The similarities were deliberate and I could actually imagine the author having a quiet chuckle as he wrote those passages. I loved how they were worked into the story. The books' author, Muscatine, is another principle character of the book, as he corresponds with Essie (secretly) through letters. I found him increasingly mysterious, the more I read of him.
There are a lot of quirky characters in this book and several plotlines running. The one I most wanted to keep reading about was Essie's own family troubles. Essie and her great-granddaughter, Tiff, had such a wonderful relationship that it made me wish for someone like Essie in my life. Tiff's struggle with adapting to her "new" life with Ivy was delicately handled. I'm sure there's so much to enjoy in this book, I just felt there was too much happening and in the end I couldn't get much closure. I do recommend this book however, because it really is an interesting read. Just don't do it on your smart phone. It's also not the kind of book you should read snippets at a time. Both could ruin your experience, as it did mine.