298 reviews for:

Drugi glasovi, druge sobe

Suzana Tratnik, Truman Capote

3.67 AVERAGE

hodges_wt's review against another edition

5.0

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This book is one of my favorite of all time. Capote's mastery of the English language is awe-inspiring. His ability to tell a story is also awe-inspiring.

I'm almost literally speechless about how much I love this book. It's one of those books that is so amazing that English doesn't even have the proper words to describe it.

This book is to Truman Capote's childhood as what To Kill a Mockingbird is to Harper Lee's childhood. (A side note: TKaM is my favorite book of all time.) It's a fictionalized account of what happened when he was younger.

Do yourself a favor and read this. It truly is spectacular.

allit's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous slow-paced

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Maybe it's because of my age, but I found myself struggling to understand parts of this book. I really enjoy Capote's later works and thought I may give this one a try. I think I'll try again when I'm older but for now I'm going to move on to other books.

euanriddle's review against another edition

2.0

challenging slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

femke13's review against another edition

4.0

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I loved the prose in this book, and the Southern Gothic themes were hauntingly beautiful. The descriptions of the muggy summer heat, buzzing mosquitos, and opulent but dilapidated rooms had me feeling like I could really experience the environment, and it was interesting to see how that created an unsettling feeling for the reader (aka me). However, the plot sometimes felt a little lackluster, seemingly jumping from one event to another without much of a driving force that was leading us somewhere. It's also unclear to me where the climax of the story was meant to fall; the sudden reveal from Randolph felt unexpected and underwhelming, and then the eventual conclusion of the book didn't seem to relate very clearly to the main theme of the book, which was Joel's desire to be loved. Overall though, the experience of reading this book was quite lovely and interesting, and I'm curious to see if rereading it at some point will make more of the plot-related choices make sense to me.

gaviaroma's review against another edition

4.75

mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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would be perfect if not for the racism

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Homophobia

thewitchofnj's review against another edition

5.0

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I just can't get over Capote's ability to turn the English language into a work of art. Each sentence is as beautiful as poetry, and yet it still reads like a novel. Brilliant.

sarah_graham's review against another edition

3.5

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

ilariarebuli's review against another edition

3.25

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

cryo_guy's review against another edition

3.25

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Gave this book to a friend for xmas, decided to read it myself as well. I've been watching this season of Feud about Capote and last year I listened to the audiobook of In Cold Blood. I had always wanted to try out Capote's other books, but never gotten around to it. So finally, I embarked on reading this his first novel. I read a little bit about its publication and how it got rave reviews, published when Capote was 24, southern gothic blah blah. His editor compared it to huck finn, but to me the gothic elements really played out a lot more. In fact, its so gothic it struck me as being more akin to Wuthering Heights than Twain. I saw some kinship to Faulkner and O'Connor, and probably McCullers, if I had read any of her. Despite the influences, Capote does seem to spearhead his own style, with flashes of what we may call brilliance. My friend especially appreciated the "tactile" prose, of course that is just to say that he can describe a scene. I viewed that more as a symptom of the gothic, which at times was so pointed that it seemed gaudy in the case of descriptions or maudlin in the case of characters. This, with the poorly constructed connections between the episodes of the book, created for me a sort of unstable narrative that was nevertheless striking. Some of the more poignant themes of the book seemed to be overshadowed by their dramatic telling-again a feature of gothic. 

Overall I did enjoy the book. It read easily and is fairly short, but I had hoped for something slightly more coherent at risk of extending the page count. Maybe I should be happy at what it is. It does very much seem like a debut effort at a novel, and obviously his prose improved since then. It's hard to level any of these criticisms at In Cold Blood, but that is a very different genre. I suppose more than anything Capote's personality characterizes this novel.

samhosman's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes