Reviews

This book was written on and off throughout Capote’s career and published after his passing without being finalized by him. And you can tell. With Grady’s motivation seemingly being very clear at the beginning but frequently changing to fit the story line with no clear explanation given. But that’s still more motivation than we get for most of the other characters. It is also painfully obvious, especially when talking about non-white characters that this book is a product of the 50s and 60s. I wish I could tell more of the plot except spooky girl gets hit with reality and can’t handle the choices she’s made but honestly the words were out of my mind as soon as they entered it. I truly do not know what the point of this book was and even though it only took about an hour to read I still feel robbed. Also dear god man use a period. I have never truly understood the frustrations of run on sentences until I read this book. If nothing else though, I now know what a swizzle stick is I guess.

lailao's review

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adventurous emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

sianski's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

alisarae's review

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I was so excited for this book when I started it. The beginning is so full of potential with beautiful character setup, but then it peeters out to a fizzle (in terms of creativity with the plot).

Grady is a rich rebel in jazz era New York. When her parents leave for the summer, she is left alone to finally get away with all of her wild teenage plans. It’s a literal car wreck.

While Grady’s character motivations are explained in the beginning as being the opposite of her mother and perfect-daughter older sister, it seems that she has something else going on that is never fully explained. Why is she so fixated on sexually manipulating men? The book says that she had the popularity and opportunity to sexually manipulate women, but neither her own popularity nor female relationships interested her. Why is she so reckless? It seems that every safety lock along the way serves to only make her choose even worse decisions. There are multiple points that I wish the internal dialogue of the character had been developed or at least that more time would have been spared to dwell on the implications for the characters, but this is only a novella. If I had been the editor, I would have pushed it to be a full length novel.

Edit: just read some other reviews that said this was never meant to be published. So there’s that.

robyn1998's review

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Wow, I didn't expect to be so impressed by this! I don't know why but I found it much easier to understand than the other Truman Capote books (apart from In Cold Blood). It seemed like the slang was easier to understand. I want to know more about Truman Capote's life because it's all in snapshots right now so I put his biography on my TBR

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