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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
I appreciate the way Udall gives space, empathy, and understanding to a community that gets a lot of contempt heaped upon it by outsiders. He did a good job of choosing specific perspectives to ping-pong between to make sure that you're not intended to identify just with the unfaithful patriarch who doesn't spend enough time with his kids.
just started thanks to Nate! I just couldn't get into A Visit from the Goon Squad.
A friend recommended this book to me and I really really liked it.
The story of a polygam family and all it entails and the slow realisation from Golden, the father that something has to change.
I really liked the characters eventhough I thought at times that Golden was a total sap and didn't have any backbone. Golden has 4 wives and 28 children and he feels lost amidst all those. His wives are deciding everything for him and money is tight so he has to travel a long way to find work. With the distance, he egts not only physically but more importantly mentally separated from his family. It will take a tragedy to make him realise what he wants in life.
We also meet Rusty who's one of the kids, the troublemaker. I really got attached to that poor kid who's lost in a brood of children and never really fits in.
Throughout the book, we also learn more about the life of the family but also their past.
A very good read but not an easy one. Udall switches periods without really anouncing it and it is disconcerting at first but once you get used to it, it's OK. The pacing is slow but it was OK because I felt it totally reflected the life of the family.
On a final note, I would really recommand this book!
The story of a polygam family and all it entails and the slow realisation from Golden, the father that something has to change.
I really liked the characters eventhough I thought at times that Golden was a total sap and didn't have any backbone. Golden has 4 wives and 28 children and he feels lost amidst all those. His wives are deciding everything for him and money is tight so he has to travel a long way to find work. With the distance, he egts not only physically but more importantly mentally separated from his family. It will take a tragedy to make him realise what he wants in life.
We also meet Rusty who's one of the kids, the troublemaker. I really got attached to that poor kid who's lost in a brood of children and never really fits in.
Throughout the book, we also learn more about the life of the family but also their past.
A very good read but not an easy one. Udall switches periods without really anouncing it and it is disconcerting at first but once you get used to it, it's OK. The pacing is slow but it was OK because I felt it totally reflected the life of the family.
On a final note, I would really recommand this book!
I think the protagonist was supposed to be sympathetic, but he was merely pathetic. The women were not well flesh-out characters.
Quite an absorbing read, with a compelling deep dive into three key characters across a very large cast. (This novel follows a polygamous Mormon family, after all.) At times Udall is quite funny, and then a few pages later he'll effortlessly shift the tone to one more serious/somber. The plot takes unexpected leaps, from parental abandonment to nuclear testing in the American southwest, from raising a disabled child to working with immigrants. I never knew where these characters were going, and I was often impressed by how Udall had seamlessly led me to yet another unexpected place.
I had my eye on this book for a while. I saw it when it first came out and was intrigued by the title (how can you not be?), but it took me a while to find the book and read it. I was a bit hesitant about how I would like the book, but in the end, I really enjoyed it. It's a great American family novel (think The Corrections) about a not-so-American family. It's really written from the pov of someone inside one of this families, not an outsider looking in and making judgements, which I enjoyed. A few of the plot points go a bit crazy in my opinion, and one of them hits you out of nowhere (and doesn't really play out), but overall I really enjoyed the novel. Plus it was funny to see the responses people had to the cover...that's entertainment on its own.
Witty, sarcastic, but ultimately sweet, Udall was able to keep this reader interested for 600 pages. He fairly balanced the lives of the patriarch, his wives and their innumerable children with humor and sensitivity. Great for anyone with a sense of humor about religion and conservative cultures.
I got through almost half the book & just couldn't finish it. I was so disappointed as it just never got interesting.