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janneyf's review against another edition
5.0
This book is incredible, and Lydia Millett is some kind of genius. Only read this book if you want to think deeply about what it means to be alive on this planet. Plus, the story itself is compelling and thrilling. If I say more, I will give away what it's about. Just read it! Then make your best friend read it so you can talk about it with him/ her.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe our gods are as small as we are or as large, varying with the size of our empathy. Maybe when a man's mind is small his god shrinks to fit.
This is an odd, difficult-to-describe book that had me from the opening pages. Part of the plot is easy to describe; after she becomes pregnant, Anna finds that her husband wants nothing to do with either of them so, when her daughter is five, they leave. Her husband Ned decides to make his career in politics and needs his family back for appearance's sake. Anna eventually finds refuge at a seaside motel in the off-season, but their safety is tenuous.
The other aspects of the plot are more difficult. Anna begins hearing a voice after her daughter is born. It goes away once her daughter can speak. What keeps her from thinking it's some sort of auditory hallucination is that her husband mentions hearing it, too. Then she finds other people who have had the same experience.
Millet isn't a lyrical author, and while she writes well, it's not her writing or her characters or her plots that make her memorable. Millet is an author of ideas. Sweet Lamb of Heaven is a religious book, but not a theological one; she's exploring the idea of God and what that means to different people and different species. And with an emphasis on ideas, the plot becomes secondary, as does the idea of finding any answers.
This is an odd, difficult-to-describe book that had me from the opening pages. Part of the plot is easy to describe; after she becomes pregnant, Anna finds that her husband wants nothing to do with either of them so, when her daughter is five, they leave. Her husband Ned decides to make his career in politics and needs his family back for appearance's sake. Anna eventually finds refuge at a seaside motel in the off-season, but their safety is tenuous.
The other aspects of the plot are more difficult. Anna begins hearing a voice after her daughter is born. It goes away once her daughter can speak. What keeps her from thinking it's some sort of auditory hallucination is that her husband mentions hearing it, too. Then she finds other people who have had the same experience.
Millet isn't a lyrical author, and while she writes well, it's not her writing or her characters or her plots that make her memorable. Millet is an author of ideas. Sweet Lamb of Heaven is a religious book, but not a theological one; she's exploring the idea of God and what that means to different people and different species. And with an emphasis on ideas, the plot becomes secondary, as does the idea of finding any answers.
littletaiko's review against another edition
3.0
This was an odd little book that seemed to be tackling religious themes wrapped up in a domestic thriller. Anna has fled her marriage to Ned, taking their daughter with her. When his political ambitions increase he decides it's time for them to be reunited as a happy family. It's never satisfactorily explained why Anna is so afraid of her husband that she feels the need to flee instead of just getting a divorce.
schray32's review against another edition
3.0
Not sure what I think about this. 3.5 stars. Weird and obscure but good too. I think I need the cliff notes to totally get it or maybe your are not supposed to and that is the point?
meghan111's review against another edition
3.0
Sweet Lamb of Heaven is both a psychological suspense story with an unreliable narrator, and an exploration of the nature of language and communication and the world, and the way language steps in and replaces the world and reality with a representation, and separates people? I'm not sure I get it, but when I was reading it I felt like I got it.
The story follows a woman and her young daughter, who are in hiding from the woman's husband. They have left Alaska and made it to a small rundown motel in Maine. The woman experienced a weird period of auditory hallucinations several years ago, starting when her daughter was born. The voice she heard stopped when her daughter started to speak. What was it? Psychological, medical, or something else? It's the off season and the motel is mostly deserted.
The woman's husband is described in sociopathic terms - he was content to just cohabitate with his wife indifferently, and to let her leave him without following, but now he's decided to run for state office, and he's taken up with a bunch of conservative politicians and adopted their beliefs. Since he's charismatic and handsome, there are thoughts of a national political career, and now he wants to present an image of the perfect family man, and is willing to go to any lengths to get his wife and daughter back so everything will look perfect to voters.
I think this has low ratings on Goodreads because the description of a psychological thriller doesn't encompass the weirdness of it. I liked it.
The story follows a woman and her young daughter, who are in hiding from the woman's husband. They have left Alaska and made it to a small rundown motel in Maine. The woman experienced a weird period of auditory hallucinations several years ago, starting when her daughter was born. The voice she heard stopped when her daughter started to speak. What was it? Psychological, medical, or something else? It's the off season and the motel is mostly deserted.
The woman's husband is described in sociopathic terms - he was content to just cohabitate with his wife indifferently, and to let her leave him without following, but now he's decided to run for state office, and he's taken up with a bunch of conservative politicians and adopted their beliefs. Since he's charismatic and handsome, there are thoughts of a national political career, and now he wants to present an image of the perfect family man, and is willing to go to any lengths to get his wife and daughter back so everything will look perfect to voters.
I think this has low ratings on Goodreads because the description of a psychological thriller doesn't encompass the weirdness of it. I liked it.
trayceebee's review against another edition
4.0
I am not sure I want to give this four stars, but three doesn't seem like enough. I'm looking at some of the other folks' reviews on this book, and I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one left scratching my head. There were many things about this book that I really enjoyed and found interesting. The concept of a wife leaving her husband with their daughter--he never loved the wife, only used her for money, and openly claimed not to even want the daughter--only to have him come back after them when he decides they'll serve a purpose in his attempt at political success.... That's pretty cool/interesting. The fact that he's able to pull all sorts of strings to follow her around, manipulate things to work in his favor, etc., is pleasantly creepy. What I don't understand is the added bonus of the ?supernatural? or whatever..... Anna (our protagonist) heard voices after her daughter was born. She's drawn to a place where, it turns out, others have heard voices as well. What THAT has to do with the rest of the story is never clear....
My biggest problem with this book is not that it doesn't seem to perfectly fit together. (Does life ever?) My problem is that, in the audio version, Lydia Millet reads the book herself. Normally I prefer when an author reads their work, because they get the tone right, they pronounce certain unique words properly, etc. But in this case, Millet has a few idiosyncrasies that just drove me bananas!!! I can only think of one at the moment: the way she pronounced the word "been", like "I had been hoping to settle down by now," or whatever..... She always pronounced it "bean", like a green bean. She's not British, she has no accent that I can detect, and she pronounces most everything else the way a midwestern American would.... but the way she'd say "BEEN" (to rhyme with "green") sent me up the wall. I seriously almost counted every time she said it and kept a tally. Have you ever selected one commonly used word in the English language and then honed in on how many times a person says it? Ugh! (My apologies to Millet--she has a soothing voice, and as I'd hoped, she clearly knew the tone of the story.... I just couldn't stand that one word, in particular.)
My biggest problem with this book is not that it doesn't seem to perfectly fit together. (Does life ever?) My problem is that, in the audio version, Lydia Millet reads the book herself. Normally I prefer when an author reads their work, because they get the tone right, they pronounce certain unique words properly, etc. But in this case, Millet has a few idiosyncrasies that just drove me bananas!!! I can only think of one at the moment: the way she pronounced the word "been", like "I had been hoping to settle down by now," or whatever..... She always pronounced it "bean", like a green bean. She's not British, she has no accent that I can detect, and she pronounces most everything else the way a midwestern American would.... but the way she'd say "BEEN" (to rhyme with "green") sent me up the wall. I seriously almost counted every time she said it and kept a tally. Have you ever selected one commonly used word in the English language and then honed in on how many times a person says it? Ugh! (My apologies to Millet--she has a soothing voice, and as I'd hoped, she clearly knew the tone of the story.... I just couldn't stand that one word, in particular.)
rpcroke's review against another edition
1.0
This is just awful. The story is uninteresting and scattered and the writing is up there with 50 shades of grey. The adjective choices are bizarre and there are simply some stupid metaphors and similes.
She keeps beating this dead horse of a trick where there will be a paragraph with lots of colorful and descriptive language, and then, to hammer whatever the point is, there is a Hemmingway-esque paragraph that is one sentence that is extremely declarative. Over and over again. It is so boring and uninspiring. And lazy.
And the inner monologue that rambles for pages and pages that go nowhere and don't push the plot forward makes me think she was getting paid by the word.
I actually quit a book club because of the choice of this book.
She keeps beating this dead horse of a trick where there will be a paragraph with lots of colorful and descriptive language, and then, to hammer whatever the point is, there is a Hemmingway-esque paragraph that is one sentence that is extremely declarative. Over and over again. It is so boring and uninspiring. And lazy.
And the inner monologue that rambles for pages and pages that go nowhere and don't push the plot forward makes me think she was getting paid by the word.
I actually quit a book club because of the choice of this book.
amycrea's review against another edition
4.0
It took me a long time to figure out how many stars to give this book. Not in a "gee I wish Goodreads had half stars" way, but in a "how exactly did I feel about this book?" way. I have to say that the jacket copy that describes the book is a bit misleading, and I totally get why people went into it thinking it was this year's Gone Girl. It's not. Yes, there's suspense; yes, there's a politically motivated husband chasing down a wife who wants to escape. But there's a lot more than that. In all honestly, I should probably read this again, now that I know what's in here, to understand it better. But in light of the fact that I never once considered dropping it, and that I've been thinking and thinking about it since I finished it, I give it four stars.
lilcoop71's review against another edition
2.0
What the what did I just read? Hmm. Well, rounding up a bit because oddly there was some great, unexpected dry humor here, but I don't think that it was supposed best feature of this strange book.
davidsteinsaltz's review against another edition
4.0
Kudos for blending philosophical fantasy with domestic thriller... but I'm not sure it worked entirely. The philosophical speculation seemed not entirely fresh, the scientific references seemed like standard pop science fare, and the fantasy elements seemed a bit pushy, in case the reader might come to the wrong conclusion. But there's no denying the originality, and it still manages to be an engaging story that gives life to the abstract themes.