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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
On the fence about this one...between three and four stars...
This is a dark book, filled with all the depravity of human existence, sexual and otherwise. There are scenes that are so painful to read about that you keep hoping for a little comic relief that just never comes.
The noteworthy aspect of the book is the author's narrative and perspective -- it's the collective "we" of the teenage boys in the novel whose friend goes missing. We get a perspective that is all of them and some of them at the same time. What I find most fascinating about the narrative is that it is written by a woman; there is no flowery prose or feminine musings of any kind.
The brillance of the novel starts in the middle and works its way toward the end. I won't spoil anything, but the reader begins to lose sight of what really happened to Nora, and what is in the imaginations of the boys. The author skillfully weaves details that could be read in multiple ways and the details keep building until you think you know what happens. Pittard isn't trying to hide that the stories are all conjecture, but the reader can't help trying to solve the mystery anyway...
This is a dark book, filled with all the depravity of human existence, sexual and otherwise. There are scenes that are so painful to read about that you keep hoping for a little comic relief that just never comes.
The noteworthy aspect of the book is the author's narrative and perspective -- it's the collective "we" of the teenage boys in the novel whose friend goes missing. We get a perspective that is all of them and some of them at the same time. What I find most fascinating about the narrative is that it is written by a woman; there is no flowery prose or feminine musings of any kind.
The brillance of the novel starts in the middle and works its way toward the end. I won't spoil anything, but the reader begins to lose sight of what really happened to Nora, and what is in the imaginations of the boys. The author skillfully weaves details that could be read in multiple ways and the details keep building until you think you know what happens. Pittard isn't trying to hide that the stories are all conjecture, but the reader can't help trying to solve the mystery anyway...
3 1/2. From about 60 pages in, I was pretty sure I'd read this before. I kept with it and now that I'm done I'm about 90% sure I read it before, with the 10% being the possibility that it's just that similar to The Virgin Suicides. Either way, decent but derivative, loved the use of first person plural narration. Will probably read more from her.
As with most books that I dislike my major issue is with the lack of description of characters, and in this case the narrator. I realize the author was likely trying to maintain the mysterious tone she set for the novel but I found it tiresome. I found it both annoying and refreshing that there wasn't more closure, very atypical.
A meandering novel with characters that may have been interesting -- but they were almost too flawed, or introduced with their flaws front and center, to really enjoy reading about them.
At the beginning, I had a hard time getting into this book. I don't think I'm a fan of the style in which this was written. The narrative is a collective group, "we". "We wondered where she went." "We went to sleep that night." "We ate dinner tonight." The question I always find myself asking is "who is the 'we'?" I want to know who they are! Sometimes, I'm more focused on trying to figure out who they were instead of paying attention to the story. And I wanted to know what really happened to Nora. Maybe the book told me and I just didn't pick up on it. Perhaps Nora wasn't even the point of the book.
Sixteen year-old Nora Lindell is missing from the mid-Atlantic. Only this book is much less about her than about the void that she leaves in her wake, one that reverberates for years to come. This novel is written in the percussive voice, from the point-of-view of her collective male peers. The effect is very haunting.
More like 2.5 really. An overall well written but not very engrossing or satisfying novel.