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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
After watching the movie countless times I decided to finally read the book so I can get my fix on this cast of messed up and deeply troubled
characters.
characters.
I absolutely devoured this book. It's exactly the kind of book I love. I imagined George Clooney as the narrator because of the movie advertisements.
It's apparently Terrible Marriage Week in Literatureville!
Today's unhappy couple comes from Hawaii, where the wife gets into a boating accident that leaves her in a coma -- and she her living will says to let her go.
When the husband starts telling people that the wife is on her way to being a corpse, his friends and daughter tell him that -- surprise! -- his wife was cheating on him and planning to leave him.
He grabs his two obnoxious daughters and they make their rounds of Hawaii to finish telling everyone, including the wife's boyfriend.
I *think* maybe they're going for a Little Miss Sunshine bittersweet thing here. That's what the ads for the movie (which I never saw) looked like. The obnoxious daughters are supposed to be sort of "bad puppy!" misbehaving cute. Like, they're troubled, but in a way that can totally be fixed -- and even sort of IS by the end of the book.
The whole trope is "the death of the family member is what MAKES THEM A FAMILY AGAIN." I see this a lot in books and movies. I have yet to see it occur in reality.
Which is not to say this is a bad book. It's just not a believable book. I read it in a day, and I don't regret it; but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, either.
Today's unhappy couple comes from Hawaii, where the wife gets into a boating accident that leaves her in a coma -- and she her living will says to let her go.
When the husband starts telling people that the wife is on her way to being a corpse, his friends and daughter tell him that -- surprise! -- his wife was cheating on him and planning to leave him.
He grabs his two obnoxious daughters and they make their rounds of Hawaii to finish telling everyone, including the wife's boyfriend.
I *think* maybe they're going for a Little Miss Sunshine bittersweet thing here. That's what the ads for the movie (which I never saw) looked like. The obnoxious daughters are supposed to be sort of "bad puppy!" misbehaving cute. Like, they're troubled, but in a way that can totally be fixed -- and even sort of IS by the end of the book.
The whole trope is "the death of the family member is what MAKES THEM A FAMILY AGAIN." I see this a lot in books and movies. I have yet to see it occur in reality.
Which is not to say this is a bad book. It's just not a believable book. I read it in a day, and I don't regret it; but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, either.
if you just read the basis of this book you'd think it was going to be depressing. But there's humor and real situations that makes this story almost feel relatable
Despite the way it appears, I don’t often cry while reading. In fact before I read Atonement, I could only think of two other books that made me cry. And now, here I am two months into 2008 and I’ve already cried twice while reading.
You might think it’s because I’ve gone soft. But you’d be wrong. It’s because I keep reading beautifully written, moving books. This time it was Kaui Hart Hemmings’ The Descendants.
I was pretty stoked to read The Descendants because it was based on my favorite short story of 2004, “The Minor Wars.” Thankfully, the novel does not disappoint. For a little bit in the middle I was worried, but the ending is perfect and true and makes the meandering well worth enduring.
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You might think it’s because I’ve gone soft. But you’d be wrong. It’s because I keep reading beautifully written, moving books. This time it was Kaui Hart Hemmings’ The Descendants.
I was pretty stoked to read The Descendants because it was based on my favorite short story of 2004, “The Minor Wars.” Thankfully, the novel does not disappoint. For a little bit in the middle I was worried, but the ending is perfect and true and makes the meandering well worth enduring.
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I absolutely loved this novel. It's heartbreaking and hilarious all at once, and the characters are forever in my memory.
I had actually seen the movie of this when it came out years ago and it just stuck with me. The book is tragic yet beautiful and captures the serene complexity of Hawaii. The movie actually builds out the characters a bit more, but the book focuses more on the emotional turmoil the comes from saying goodbye to someone. In the end you leave feeling hopeful for matt king and his family as they look on to the future. I'd highly recommend it!
I saw the movie when it came out, and have had this book on my shelf for years. This is the first time that I would say that a movie truly did a book justice, but the book is still so much richer!
Amazing, unique, compelling first novel, especially for anyone who has a connection to Hawaii and its complicated lineage. Intelligent, sad, funny, poignant storytelling that gets at parenting, marriage, teenagers, responsibility, regret in very real ways.
Pretty quick read, I liked that I didn’t quite guess that she loved him and he didn’t love her. Sad but real