Scan barcode
ncoltelli_09's review against another edition
5.0
This really was an excellent read. The entire middle section felt so dreamy it was as if I couldn’t really wake up from a nap. Had I known about Alice’s miscarriages I probably never would have read this, having suffered 2 myself in the last 18 months but once I got past that it was great.
vandermeer's review
1.0
Widerwillen auf den ersten Blick. Ich weiß nicht, warum es mich anwidert.., DNF
geoffreylittle's review
5.0
I was blown away by how good a writer Adam Ross is. The book is lurid, gruesome, and irresistible.
lessard8424's review
2.0
It's quite the ride. I'm not sure exactly where it's going, but I sure hope it ties all together somehow!
cjgmiranda220's review
2.0
My expectations of this books and the actual content of the book were way off. I was expecting a murder-mystery, which it was, but what I got was depressing exploration of marriage. I know every marriage has it's problems. After being married or in a relationship for a while, you have your days where you imagine a stray piano falling out of the sky. This book focused on not one, but three terrible marriages. If you were contemplating marriage before reading this book, you wouldn't go through with it. If you are feeling too happy, you might need an anti-depressant after reading this.
What really irked me was that every female character was either crazy, depressed, stupid, weak-minded, or stepford wife. Plus, why were there so many pages devoted to the investigators? Yes, I understand to develop the character, you need to look at their home life. This was over-kill.
I thought about not finishing the book, but I was already half-way through it, and I was interested in "who done it", so I guess in that way, it did reach it's goal of sucking me in. However, the final outcome of this book was not worth it for me.
I got this book on Kindle loan. I'm so glad I didn't pay for it.
What really irked me was that every female character was either crazy, depressed, stupid, weak-minded, or stepford wife. Plus, why were there so many pages devoted to the investigators? Yes, I understand to develop the character, you need to look at their home life. This was over-kill.
I thought about not finishing the book, but I was already half-way through it, and I was interested in "who done it", so I guess in that way, it did reach it's goal of sucking me in. However, the final outcome of this book was not worth it for me.
I got this book on Kindle loan. I'm so glad I didn't pay for it.
toniclark's review
3.0
Ross is a brilliant writer. Critics keep using the word dazzling. I'll second that. Yes, there are some flaws in the logic relating to some individual events. As one example, Alice insists on hiking a difficult and dangerous trail, involving a very narrow footpath at the edge of a cliff and seems to do alright, notwithstanding one mishap from which her husband rescues her. But this is just a few days after a traumatic miscarriage -- not to mention that Alice is morbidly obese. No way. There are other similar incidents that strain credibility. But the structure is brilliant. Okay, maybe a bit in-your-face? It offended my aesthetic sensibility a bit to have a character named Mr. Mobius. (As if the author is in the wings, whispering "Get it?") I still enjoyed the structure, though. I felt as though I were inside an Escher print. Yes, I know that's just what the author intended. He didn't need to beat me over the head with the idea.
A delightful detail: There's mention of an illness called SLSD (Sudden Loss of Suspension of Disbelief). I love it. It's brilliant. I had to check immediately to see whether there's really a disorder called SLSD, but there's not. Ross made it up. Even more brilliant. The narrator talks about it in the context of a personal trauma that happens on a flight. (I guess that, when you fly, you have to suspend your disbelief that this big hung of steel could stay airborne. But when something bad happens, pow: SLSD.) But I can imagine all kinds of scenarios in which one might succumb to it. But you don't want to get it while reading Mr. Peanut!
A delightful detail: There's mention of an illness called SLSD (Sudden Loss of Suspension of Disbelief). I love it. It's brilliant. I had to check immediately to see whether there's really a disorder called SLSD, but there's not. Ross made it up. Even more brilliant. The narrator talks about it in the context of a personal trauma that happens on a flight. (I guess that, when you fly, you have to suspend your disbelief that this big hung of steel could stay airborne. But when something bad happens, pow: SLSD.) But I can imagine all kinds of scenarios in which one might succumb to it. But you don't want to get it while reading Mr. Peanut!
liketheday's review
3.0
I liked the concepts that Ross was working with, of Escher and tessellations and Hitchcock and disorientation; I liked the way he built up a million questions and seeming incongruities and then made them all work out, in one form or another, at the end; I liked that he gave me a nudge in the right direction when things got all literary and subtextual. I didn't like the characters, who were by design all very similar and possibly by design all really annoying; I didn't like the interlude with Sam Sheppard that didn't really go anywhere, by which I mean it didn't seem to move the story along and also it didn't seem to fit in with the story, at the end; I didn't like that Ross's nudges sometimes turned into pushes or slaps.
read more...
read more...