Take a photo of a barcode or cover
I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes it felt alittle all over but most of it really captivated me. I was sucked in from the beginning and didn't want to take a break from listening. Life does go on after Tragedy it's the people who are left to put it back together and not run from it. That's what I got from the book.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although this book handles a lot of dark topics, it was not as bad as I expected from other reviews. All of the characters are simultaneously likable and hatable. Tan does a great job of showing both sides of what it is like to be human; the good qualities we portray to others and the dark secrets we try to keep to ourselves. Although this is a more character driven book than plot driven book, as others have pointed out, the plots of each character are still interesting in themselves, and the ways that the characters are intertwined deliver small plot twists as well. Overall, I was thoroughly interested in each character and genuinely enjoyed the way that they were written.
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There are several homes on Santa Clause Lane in California. One is the home of the Parks: he leads a Korean church and lives with his obedient and adoring wife and two daughters. One daughter is attracted to her theater teacher who seems overly involved in her life and there is a boy she really really like — who likes her too. Another is the home of a once popular horror story author whose books attracted young men to him, and his father is in a nursing home Still another is the home of a woman and her adopted Vietnamese daughter. Sometimes their paths cross - as neighbors do. All of the stories take a while to develop. All of the mothers and daughters have challenging relationships. It’s an odd book. The stories meander, developing slowly but none of the characters had an emotional pull for me. It’s a neighborhood of people who are pretty average and nor all that reflective. The teen age lacks any adolescent awkwardness or self consciousness - strange for high school kids. At first I thought it was a bunch of short stories about the different families on the street - that’s how disjointed it felt. Out of nowhere - there was some talk of poltergeists which didn’t really go anywhere.
Well written, but I didn't enjoy it. Anything with a male character grooming a child isn't it for me - satire or not.
I was thrilled to find out that one of the makers of the documentary Shirkers had written a novel called Lurkers. Maybe everything she makes will rhyme? Will her upcoming musical album be called Workers?
Other than the name, and a unique quirky style (Quirkers?), the novel did not appear to have much in common with the documentary (more on that later). It's set in suburban Alta Vista, California, a portrait of the people who live on Santa Claus Lane and how their lives intersect and (sometimes unintentionally) affect each other.
The book starts out with tragedy and trauma, but rather than harp on feelings, these characters let their feelings make them do stupid and sometimes funny things. Tan is not concerned about getting to the bottom of those problems and somehow finding a satisfying resolution. She's not interested in characters changing for the better or faux sentiments about life. Rather, she watches these feelings play out in the world like the documentarian that she is, one who's not willing to disturb the nest even as its being eaten by wolves.
The traumatic events that happen are not taken as light or dark, but merely vehicles that set up the absurd events that unfold towards the end of the novel like a grand theatrical production. There is a comical element to it all, but it's a very dark one, with no easy moral.
Remember how I said that there didn't appear to be anything similar to Shirkers? Well I was wrong. There is an element that is similar to that docu-feature. Towards the middle of the book, the reader slowly realizes, to his/her horror, that one of the protagonist's teachers is grooming her and acting in many horribly inappropriate ways. Not that Shirkers was exactly that, but there definitely was some teacher/student boundary issues in that movie too.
These scenes were especially affecting because of the way it was written--through the lens of the protagonist's experience. She, being a teenager with fantasies of romance and freedom from suburbia, does not know that what the teacher is doing is wrong. She thinks she's been chosen and that she is special in the eyes of her teacher, and that she doesn't want to disappoint him. Her schoolgirl infatuation is portrayed unapologetically. And the author does not step in at any point to show how wrong any of this is. Remember, she's a documentarian at heart, even when writing fiction.
I think a lot of the bad reviews on here are because people are extremely uncomfortable with this narrative (and I was too). But I think there's immense value in that discomfort. I've read my fair share of books about pedophilia in my time (ok that sounds bad haha), but usually they either 1.) come with some kind of redemption for the victim, or at least some kind of poetic "meaning" so that the experience is not for naught or 2.) is told from the perspective of the perpetrator a la [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604._SY75_.jpg|1268631] (I was struck by how much Lolita was a figment, a ghost of Humbert Humbert's imagination, her entire agency erased).
I can't recall any book that so inhabited the delusional mindset of the victim, and was so willing to let it stand uncorrected. A meaningless tragedy. Not only that, the book doesn't even recognize it as tragedy, but allows the reader to interpret it how they want. There's a gutsiness in that.
As for the book on a whole, I felt like the characters were very well written and believable and very unique personalities. But there were parts of the book that bored me, mostly the mid-section, where a lot of backstory was told in less than inspiring prose. And the very end of the book felt anticlimactic. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting it to just end.
Other than the name, and a unique quirky style (Quirkers?), the novel did not appear to have much in common with the documentary (more on that later). It's set in suburban Alta Vista, California, a portrait of the people who live on Santa Claus Lane and how their lives intersect and (sometimes unintentionally) affect each other.
The book starts out with tragedy and trauma, but rather than harp on feelings, these characters let their feelings make them do stupid and sometimes funny things. Tan is not concerned about getting to the bottom of those problems and somehow finding a satisfying resolution. She's not interested in characters changing for the better or faux sentiments about life. Rather, she watches these feelings play out in the world like the documentarian that she is, one who's not willing to disturb the nest even as its being eaten by wolves.
The traumatic events that happen are not taken as light or dark, but merely vehicles that set up the absurd events that unfold towards the end of the novel like a grand theatrical production. There is a comical element to it all, but it's a very dark one, with no easy moral.
Remember how I said that there didn't appear to be anything similar to Shirkers? Well I was wrong. There is an element that is similar to that docu-feature. Towards the middle of the book, the reader slowly realizes, to his/her horror, that one of the protagonist's teachers is grooming her and acting in many horribly inappropriate ways. Not that Shirkers was exactly that, but there definitely was some teacher/student boundary issues in that movie too.
These scenes were especially affecting because of the way it was written--through the lens of the protagonist's experience. She, being a teenager with fantasies of romance and freedom from suburbia, does not know that what the teacher is doing is wrong. She thinks she's been chosen and that she is special in the eyes of her teacher, and that she doesn't want to disappoint him. Her schoolgirl infatuation is portrayed unapologetically. And the author does not step in at any point to show how wrong any of this is. Remember, she's a documentarian at heart, even when writing fiction.
I think a lot of the bad reviews on here are because people are extremely uncomfortable with this narrative (and I was too). But I think there's immense value in that discomfort. I've read my fair share of books about pedophilia in my time (ok that sounds bad haha), but usually they either 1.) come with some kind of redemption for the victim, or at least some kind of poetic "meaning" so that the experience is not for naught or 2.) is told from the perspective of the perpetrator a la [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604._SY75_.jpg|1268631] (I was struck by how much Lolita was a figment, a ghost of Humbert Humbert's imagination, her entire agency erased).
I can't recall any book that so inhabited the delusional mindset of the victim, and was so willing to let it stand uncorrected. A meaningless tragedy. Not only that, the book doesn't even recognize it as tragedy, but allows the reader to interpret it how they want. There's a gutsiness in that.
As for the book on a whole, I felt like the characters were very well written and believable and very unique personalities. But there were parts of the book that bored me, mostly the mid-section, where a lot of backstory was told in less than inspiring prose. And the very end of the book felt anticlimactic. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting it to just end.