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momadvice's review against another edition
2.0
I am a huge fan of Jane Hamilton's work and was so looking forward to reading this. I will admit that the cover and immediately laugh-out-loud opening chapter are what sucked me in.
From that point on, the novel went downhill for me. What I thought was going to be a funny book soon turned into a very strange world complete with talk of aliens, knee families, and other made-up stories.
The ending didn't really draw any conclusions and the plot did not seem to go anywhere.
I would recommend this as a quick beach read, but not to be surprised if the opening chapter is the best part about this book. I have not given up on Jane Hamilton though and am hoping that her next book will be as great as that first chapter of this one!
From that point on, the novel went downhill for me. What I thought was going to be a funny book soon turned into a very strange world complete with talk of aliens, knee families, and other made-up stories.
The ending didn't really draw any conclusions and the plot did not seem to go anywhere.
I would recommend this as a quick beach read, but not to be surprised if the opening chapter is the best part about this book. I have not given up on Jane Hamilton though and am hoping that her next book will be as great as that first chapter of this one!
melanie_page's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
My favorite aspect of Laura Rider’s Masterpiece is how complex it is when you look beyond the satire and purposeful clichés. Jenna is a learned person, quoting from Brideshead Revisited and playing Scrabble in different languages, yet her e-mails to Charlie are like something from a high school diary. Laura is a capable businesswoman with a hands-in-dirt job who wants to enter the literary world. Even though she tries to be more worldly like Jenna and fails, her personal development lends itself to understanding human behavior in a complex way. Hamilton crafts a story about educated vs. laboring people, sex vs. marriage, learning vs. experiencing, and satire vs. the actual absurdity of being a human.
I bought Laura Rider’s Masterpiece at a Goodwill because I loved her novel The Book of Ruth. When I got home and saw the low ratings on Goodreads, I was disappointed. But, I already owned the book so I went in with low expectations. I found the novel quite funny and revealing regardless of the low ratings on Goodreads, feeling it is worth 4-5 stars.
christy_cotter's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
laranda's review against another edition
3.0
The concept of this book was great and very future forward for its time I'd say. Would give 3.5 but rounded down. Just a bit too wordy and trying too hard to be something more. Though I really liked how it ended with Laura ultimately being successful in her quest, and I like the unresolvedness of the affair.
moreadsbooks's review against another edition
3.0
What an odd, quirky little book. Quite good. I wish that the end hadn't been The End, it seemed a bit abrupt to me.
mgeryk's review against another edition
2.0
To me, it felt at best as though it were an exercise in comic writing, which I suppose would be very meta, given the subject matter, but I just didn't love it.
meli65's review against another edition
1.0
The characters in this book speak in very strange ways -- I thought I kind of liked it, but then decided I didn't.
northstar's review
3.0
I enjoyed this light book but felt it had some problems. I've read other Jane Hamilton novels and her other books are not comedies, although she includes humor on occasion. Her characters include a mentally disabled woman who dreams of love and a woman who is jailed after her friend's daughter dies while in her care. Hamilton is a genius with these situations and her novels are powerful and deft--I admire her writing and I can see why she would want to take on a lighter topic. In this book, Laura Rider and her husband, Charlie, meet a local celebrity--a public radio host--and decide to make the woman fall in love with Charlie as part of Laura's research; she wants to write a romance novel.
The caper succeeds, and the downfall is appropriate to this age of email and thoughtless correspondence. I enjoyed the humor and the way Hamilton reveres but also pokes fun at public radio listeners. I also liked that the characters are in their 40s--not every stupid, goofy thing is done by teenagers in love. I liked that the book contained no vampires. But the ironic tone kept me from connecting to the characters and I never got a sense of Laura. It was hard to get a handle on Jenna, the radio host, too. Is she a lovelorn woman or just selfish and manipulative? Why does Charlie think he was once kidnapped by aliens? These things were fun to read about but also a little confusing.
If you like Hamilton's style, I would give this a try, but don't disregard her if you don't like the book. Pick up another one of her novels, esp. The Book of Ruth, and see what she does best. I am glad I read it, though. The good parts are really good and Hamilton is so observant that I found myself agreeing with so many of her paragraphs even as the characters totally lost me.
The caper succeeds, and the downfall is appropriate to this age of email and thoughtless correspondence. I enjoyed the humor and the way Hamilton reveres but also pokes fun at public radio listeners. I also liked that the characters are in their 40s--not every stupid, goofy thing is done by teenagers in love. I liked that the book contained no vampires. But the ironic tone kept me from connecting to the characters and I never got a sense of Laura. It was hard to get a handle on Jenna, the radio host, too. Is she a lovelorn woman or just selfish and manipulative? Why does Charlie think he was once kidnapped by aliens? These things were fun to read about but also a little confusing.
If you like Hamilton's style, I would give this a try, but don't disregard her if you don't like the book. Pick up another one of her novels, esp. The Book of Ruth, and see what she does best. I am glad I read it, though. The good parts are really good and Hamilton is so observant that I found myself agreeing with so many of her paragraphs even as the characters totally lost me.
jodiwilldare's review
2.0
You know, my gut told me Laura Rider’s Masterpiece was going to be disappointing chicklit. But I didn’t listen to my gut. Instead I listened to the voice in my head. That voice was Jane Hamilton’s, who I sew read in 2007 at The Loft. She was there as judge of the McKnight Fellowships (I think) and she gave such a great speech about writing and how even though people keep telling her to write a memoir or something other than fiction, she doesn’t because nobody realizes that those kinds of writing aren’t the same thing. I was smitten.
Then she read from the beginning of her work in progress, a book about a bored Wisconsin woman who runs a garden shop with her husband. It was witty and funny and her main character, Laura Rider, was obsessed with a public radio personality, Jenna Faroli. What she read was funny and witty. So when I saw the book had finally been released, I ignored my gut and followed my head.
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Then she read from the beginning of her work in progress, a book about a bored Wisconsin woman who runs a garden shop with her husband. It was witty and funny and her main character, Laura Rider, was obsessed with a public radio personality, Jenna Faroli. What she read was funny and witty. So when I saw the book had finally been released, I ignored my gut and followed my head.
read more
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