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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Oppenheimer triplets - Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally - would like nothing more than to be free of each other forever. They’re about to (finally!) leave their cushy Brooklyn home for college (Ivy League, of course) when their parents make the bonkers decision to implant the leftover fourth embryo from the IVF cycle that resulted in the triplets’ birth, and this late-to-the-party fourth sibling might be exactly what this dysfunctional family needs to pull themselves back together.
•-•-•-•
I loved this book so much that it’s hard to even talk about it without sounding like a lunatic, other than to say it’s one of those books that fizzes in your brain when you start reading - from the second you start you just KNOW it’s going to be SO GOOD. I stayed up too late and tore through all 450 pages of this, and I already want to read it again. The characters are all flawed - so flawed - and some are utterly loathsome (Harrison, I’m looking at your smug AF young conservative face), but I still wanted everything to work out for them in the end. This book is funny and moving and the tone of the writing is so smart and witty and sarcastic and perfect it makes me want to scream (happy screaming, but I’ll still sound like a lunatic). This is definitely going on my favorite books of the year list.
I will admit that I was not the biggest fan of The Plot, but after reading The Latecomer, I will read anything and everything that Jean Hanff Korelitz writes (and I’m ecstatic that she has a serious backlist to get cracking on)!
* thanks to Celadon Books for the NetGalley review copy. The Latecomer publishes May 31, 2022.
•-•-•-•
I loved this book so much that it’s hard to even talk about it without sounding like a lunatic, other than to say it’s one of those books that fizzes in your brain when you start reading - from the second you start you just KNOW it’s going to be SO GOOD. I stayed up too late and tore through all 450 pages of this, and I already want to read it again. The characters are all flawed - so flawed - and some are utterly loathsome (Harrison, I’m looking at your smug AF young conservative face), but I still wanted everything to work out for them in the end. This book is funny and moving and the tone of the writing is so smart and witty and sarcastic and perfect it makes me want to scream (happy screaming, but I’ll still sound like a lunatic). This is definitely going on my favorite books of the year list.
I will admit that I was not the biggest fan of The Plot, but after reading The Latecomer, I will read anything and everything that Jean Hanff Korelitz writes (and I’m ecstatic that she has a serious backlist to get cracking on)!
* thanks to Celadon Books for the NetGalley review copy. The Latecomer publishes May 31, 2022.
Loved the small details and how it all came together. Was interested in this story from the beginning and it never waned.
Although the first part offered quite a slow start and it was difficult for me to become fully invested, parts two and three more than delivered. One of the more satisfying endings I’ve read in recent history. Families are so complicated!!!!!!
I struggle with character-driven books vs. plot-driven books. I enjoyed learning about each family member and their character arcs throughout the book, but the plot was incredibly slow and the ending felt rushed.
The unfolding of understanding a family and its dynamic, its secrets, as presented by the "youngest" child. I don't often read what I shelve as "hot mess family" because looking around pretty much covers the nonfic version of that, but the exceptions in my reading are typically excellent. This is all about missed communication, unresolved expectations, opportunities lost, and finally, thankfully, closure. The author will not leave you hanging. You will leave thinking about your own communication, expectations, opportunities and, hopefully, closure
I thought this book was much better than this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, “Trust.” Both were about wealthy, privileged white families, but this story was much more compelling.
Test tube triplets Sally, Harrison and Lewyn don’t want to have anything to do with each other. Their mother, Joanna tries her best to keep them, and her husband, Sol, together, but Sola was never really in love with her. He is still trying to come to grips that he killed two people in a car accident when he was a college student.
Throw in a roommate whose mother is a hoarder, someone trying to come to grips with their sexual identity, a sibling with a strong conservative bent, and other items I can’t mention without it being a spoiler, I couldn’t put this book down!
Whereas when I read “Trust,” it was very easy to leave the book and I had to push myself to finish it, though the last third of that book was better than the first 2/3.
Test tube triplets Sally, Harrison and Lewyn don’t want to have anything to do with each other. Their mother, Joanna tries her best to keep them, and her husband, Sol, together, but Sola was never really in love with her. He is still trying to come to grips that he killed two people in a car accident when he was a college student.
Throw in a roommate whose mother is a hoarder, someone trying to come to grips with their sexual identity, a sibling with a strong conservative bent, and other items I can’t mention without it being a spoiler, I couldn’t put this book down!
Whereas when I read “Trust,” it was very easy to leave the book and I had to push myself to finish it, though the last third of that book was better than the first 2/3.
So much about this book I liked so I’ll just get out the way the things that I didn’t. Each chapter, aside from having a title, has a sentence of introduction. In every chapter I felt like I was reading an elementary school novel that had to tease me to get me to read it. Also some of the chapters ended with teasers about what would happen in the future. These two literary styles just irritated me.
The story, however, was raw. About a family that had so many secrets that it basically imploded during one fateful 24-hour period. The story about triplets, born to a couple each hiding their own fears and foibles. A family that never really connected with five very different orbits in the same sphere, each honing their barbs bath for distance and for the kill.
I felt each of their stories. Each of the children but especially the mother, Johanna. Her fantasy of what she wanted her family to be was so big. Something I can understand. And something that while she held on was unobtainable.
Redemption for them all comes in the unlikeliest of people, the late in life sister born into a very different family than the triplets. And one who is freed from the expectations the first family had.
The author does an amazing job of skewering the liberal intellectual education system. While I think it served as a vehicle to ‘explain’ the characters, it did give ideas to think about. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far. I’m just hopeful it balances out.
I also wanted to comment on the house cleaning that Sally and Phoebe take upon themselves to do. I know the joy that this mitzvah can bring and the feeling of not only putting someone else in order but yourself as well.
The story, however, was raw. About a family that had so many secrets that it basically imploded during one fateful 24-hour period. The story about triplets, born to a couple each hiding their own fears and foibles. A family that never really connected with five very different orbits in the same sphere, each honing their barbs bath for distance and for the kill.
I felt each of their stories. Each of the children but especially the mother, Johanna. Her fantasy of what she wanted her family to be was so big. Something I can understand. And something that while she held on was unobtainable.
Redemption for them all comes in the unlikeliest of people, the late in life sister born into a very different family than the triplets. And one who is freed from the expectations the first family had.
The author does an amazing job of skewering the liberal intellectual education system. While I think it served as a vehicle to ‘explain’ the characters, it did give ideas to think about. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far. I’m just hopeful it balances out.
I also wanted to comment on the house cleaning that Sally and Phoebe take upon themselves to do. I know the joy that this mitzvah can bring and the feeling of not only putting someone else in order but yourself as well.
Listened to the audiobook on 1.15 speed and liked the narrator. I really enjoyed the idea and story. Overall felt very immersed in the Oppenheimer’s world. I felt like the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the book was a little bogged down by the triplets perspective and at times verrry repetitive feelings. I wish that was condensed a little because I really enjoyed the latter aspects of the story more.