Reviews

A Widow for One Year by John Irving

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bupdaddy's review against another edition

3.0

Maybe I wasn't in the mood for John Irving, so it's my fault, but when the first hundred pages had boarding school, dead kids, New England, major characters who happen to be authors, and smatterings of German, I spent the rest of the book waiting for a bear to ride through the door on a motorcycle.

It's almost like a self-parody, this book. He tries a female protagonist this time 'round, but that "woman" struck me as John Irving in drag - her competitive machismo is in full force as she builds up her squash game, practicing all day, icing her shoulder, and impressing every person who sees her with how strong her right arm is. She even beats a guy up at one point.

Anyway, the last 150 pages really picked up and bumped it up from 2 stars to 3, for me.

And I realize that no matter how much I make fun of John Irving's stock elements, I keep reading him.

kaylamf's review against another edition

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2.0

This book is good. The writing is beautiful but the books characters are boring. The plot line was interesting enough to keep me hanging on but I don’t think I would ever revisit this book nor recommend it.

colorfulleo92's review against another edition

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1.0

Well this was disappointing, don't know why I had such high hopes on this as I've only given his books three stars at the moment. The story wasn't interestingly at all and the characters was terrible written. I had bought this and another one of his books on a flea market so might give him a 4th and last try

nferre's review against another edition

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3.0

I always feel like I'm supposed to like John Irving more than I actually do. This book was interesting and I'm glad I read it, but maybe just not my style.

amberhayward's review against another edition

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3.0

Standard John Irving. Faults, fate, people losing a body part, the northeast, dysfunction. Modern American literature at its finest.

diannaobrien's review against another edition

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3.0

It shouldn't really be on my Amsterdam/Arnhem/Cologne/Hamburg/Cologne shelf, because only one small section is set in Amsterdam. But it's an interesting book, a page turner. I wouldn't actually say I enjoyed the book because the characters all seem very surface, and that's too bad because there's a lot to work with here. For example, Ruth is abandoned by her mother at 4, but the book never explores everything that would mean. For example, it notes continually that she's angry about that, but it never ties together the fact of how she never trusts because of her family and her father, the fact that she doesn't even consider marrying until she's in her late 30s and that her only friend is a women she can't trust. That's the EFFECT of events, but none of this or anything else like this is explored in the book.
But I'll give John Irving credit, he's a word smith and I couldn't not read the book, although it is basically a sex drenched mystery, it suffers from the lack of exploring the characters.