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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Sally Jay Gorce is an American in Paris and having the time of her life - or so she is convincing herself. Funded by a wealthy uncle, Sally is gaining an education in LIFE: saying yes to everything including dyeing her hair pink, wearing evening dresses in the daytime and having an affair with a married man (except he's not what he seems...). On the face of it, Sally is a rip-roaring good time: she draws you into her confidence, makes you roll your eyes alongside her as the men in her life turn out to be cads and bores and laugh at her outrageous escapades. Sally's Paris in the 1950s sounds brilliant! Cocktails in the Ritz, getting roles in movies, beautiful clothes and men falling over themselves to light your Gauloises cigarettes...
However, The Dud Avocado is a bit like going to a party and drinking champagne cocktails - after a couple of sips you're feeling good, full of witty conversation and enjoying everyone's company. After one too many glasses, you've got a bit of a headache and want to go home...
Overall, Sally Jay was good fun but there were passages my eyes just skimmed over as I was reading because I was a bit... bored, really. She felt like a mix between Holly Golightly and Emily in Paris but without the character growth/depth. Good fun but definitely a one-time read for me.
However, The Dud Avocado is a bit like going to a party and drinking champagne cocktails - after a couple of sips you're feeling good, full of witty conversation and enjoying everyone's company. After one too many glasses, you've got a bit of a headache and want to go home...
Overall, Sally Jay was good fun but there were passages my eyes just skimmed over as I was reading because I was a bit... bored, really. She felt like a mix between Holly Golightly and Emily in Paris but without the character growth/depth. Good fun but definitely a one-time read for me.
Sally Jay Gorce both exasperated and enchanted me. One the one hand she was an immature girl, spoiled in that she didn't really have to worry about money, someone who could go from having the best and worst night of her life in the span of the same exact night, with nothing really changing abut the evening except her fleeting interest in it. On the other hand, she was an astute observer of the expat scene, and her own role in it. She could be both deluded about her actions while at the same time seeing them perfectly for what they are. What Dundy's done has created a unique yet recognizable voice for Sally Jay. The book is funny and fascinating. You really do care what becomes of Sally. Really loved this book.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-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
It’s hard to stand out in a genre that’s been around at least since Edith Wharton and churns out stories like they’re Hallmark Movies, but “The Dud Avocado” certainly achieves and it all starts with its heroine Sally Jay Gorce. After running away from home at 13 to become a bullfighter, Sally Jay’s wealthy uncle promises to fund her for two years of adventuring anywhere she pleases upon her graduation from university; she chooses to start in Paris. Sally Jay is charming, witty, and a klutz; but what separates her is a delicate balance between brains and naiveté. It often feels as if she experiences her epiphanies as she is narrating them to us, “Looking back, I didn’t know anyone he’d actually been wrong about-except of course me, but then as we know I am totally incomprehensible to everyone including myself.” The books is loaded with such clever musings. Being published in 1958, Sally Jay’s blunt delivery of her sexual forays and Parisian nightlife must have been quite shocking at the time, but now feels genuine and honest, earning our trust as opposed to impressing or scandalizing. This is great literature and I am very happy to know that Dundy wrote a follow up to give the world a little more Sally Jay.
book is about being a slut, having a bad time on vacation, having a meltdown, then finally realizing you should go to grad school. in two words: aries culture.
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I suppose i did like this book. There is lots to like about this book. It’s very fast flowing and chaotic, the plot points dont always seem to fit the genre, but I suppose that is the fun of it.
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Girls will be girls. I love seeing that through the centuries, we’ve just always been the same. Also first novel in frenglish I’ve read, relatable.
The Dud Avocado follows the adventures of one Sally Jay Gorce, an aspiring young American actress as she tries her best to live in the Paris of the late 1950s. In some ways, it's a shockingly modern book for those of us who are used to thinking of the 50s as being a very repressed and conservative decade, while in others it is most definitely antiquated. The dialogue in particular seems particularly odd; the idiosyncracies of American speech at that time are so unusual that it, at times, makes the novel seem strangely like a pastiche for all that it is a contemporary work. The humour and charm of the book, therefore, lies mostly not in the dialogue, but in the narrative of the finely drawn protagonist, Sally Jay. Any such subtlety or charm is sadly lacking in the other characters, though, and the prose is not really good enough to make up for their shortcomings. A nice example of its era, but not something I think I'll be coming back to.