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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Spoonbenders was really up and down for me. I think it boils down to the idea being really fun and interesting but the actual story, the day to day events, weren't really interesting. The flashbacks to the start of the family and learning how each person got their powers were the best parts. Overall this book toed the line of being just interesting enough in the beginning for me to keep reading, but midway I felt myself pushing through and not being invested in the story much more.
As I said above, the best part of the story was the beginning when we were learning about the family and discovering what each person's powers were. Especially when we learn that Teddy isn't actually magical, I got excited at the start because it seemed like the book was going to be about this family trying to evade the James Randi charater trying to discredit them as they perform. Instead the story is a "mob-boss"/"owe money to the mafia" real-life drama that was difficult for me to follow and wasn't really interesting. I didn't really care about Teddy and Graciella, and as the plot unfolded with Frankie owing money, Nick or Nick Sr. on trial for murder, Graciella asking for help from Teddy and Irene, Buddy planning for doomsday, etc. I got lost and uninterested. The only fun part was Matty trying to figure out how to astral project.
For me the most interesting character in the book was the one we never actually got the perspective of: Maureen. I hate to knock a book for not being the book I'd write, but I think it would've been much more interesting if we got to Maureen's perspective on the family as it grew up, the act, her relationship with Teddy, etc. We saw some of Maureen through Teddy and Buddy and the other kids, but it wasn't enough for me.
Ultimately I was frustrated by this book because it was good enough for me to want to keep reading and not quit on it (I thought about quitting several times), but never really had much payoff for sticking with it. For me this is the ultimate example of a book that's a fantastic idea in theory but ultimately ins't super well written, the story itself isn't very exciting and most of the characters are forgettable.
As I said above, the best part of the story was the beginning when we were learning about the family and discovering what each person's powers were. Especially when we learn that Teddy isn't actually magical, I got excited at the start because it seemed like the book was going to be about this family trying to evade the James Randi charater trying to discredit them as they perform. Instead the story is a "mob-boss"/"owe money to the mafia" real-life drama that was difficult for me to follow and wasn't really interesting. I didn't really care about Teddy and Graciella, and as the plot unfolded with Frankie owing money, Nick or Nick Sr. on trial for murder, Graciella asking for help from Teddy and Irene, Buddy planning for doomsday, etc. I got lost and uninterested. The only fun part was Matty trying to figure out how to astral project.
For me the most interesting character in the book was the one we never actually got the perspective of: Maureen. I hate to knock a book for not being the book I'd write, but I think it would've been much more interesting if we got to Maureen's perspective on the family as it grew up, the act, her relationship with Teddy, etc. We saw some of Maureen through Teddy and Buddy and the other kids, but it wasn't enough for me.
Ultimately I was frustrated by this book because it was good enough for me to want to keep reading and not quit on it (I thought about quitting several times), but never really had much payoff for sticking with it. For me this is the ultimate example of a book that's a fantastic idea in theory but ultimately ins't super well written, the story itself isn't very exciting and most of the characters are forgettable.
This took me a while to get into, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. There's a bit of character jumping going on, which I typically don't enjoy, but didn't mind so much here. It went with the theme of the book, honestly.
I'd recommend reading this if you're looking for something to read that is unique.
Also, takes place in Chicago, which I love.
I'd recommend reading this if you're looking for something to read that is unique.
Also, takes place in Chicago, which I love.
Really well thought out story. Great use of changing perspectives. I think my favorite thing about is was the chronological order of the book while it was often told in a form of non-chronological flashbacks throughout. Big fan of the characters. This is a solid/high 4 stars to me, almost 5 level.
This is the family saga of a very unusual family: they all have psychic abilities. Gregory is very good at writing likable, quirky characters, and this book is no exception. The story is intriguing and keeps you turning the pages, but I found the end to be anti-climactic.
I just didn't care about the characters :(
One of, if not the best, books I read this year. I loved the beautiful character development, the well paced movement back and forth between the present and the past, and the perfect culmination of everything that came together for the ending. Also, I remember that a few months after I read this, I started getting interested in psychic phenomenon for reasons that may or may not have had anything to do with Ghostbusters, and when I was researching that, a lot of things came up that took me back to this book--Mr. Gregory definitely did his research!
The Amazing Telemachus Family never really recovered from a disastrous episode of The Mike Douglas Show. Instead of showing off their psychic abilities, the entire family was thoroughly debunked. Twenty some odd years later, they’re living in a suburb of Chicago and just barely scraping by. What they don’t know at the beginning of Daryl Gregory’s highly entertaining Spoonbenders is that they’re about to give their greatest performance ever...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
*thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a (clearly) honest and unbiased review*
This book was very strange -which i was expecting! I mean com on! We are talking about a family that apparently is able to perform magic. So clearly it was going to be strange.
But it was too strange for me if that makes any sense.
I hated the opening scene of this book.
Which is not a good way to start a book for me! I do always have a hard time connecting to a book if the first few pages do not work for me! It just sets the tone for the entire book for me, and sadly in this one? It was not working for me!
But i am just not a big fan of being greeted with a masturbation scene where a male cousin gets off on watching his female cousin.
Because just... NO!
I am sorry but NO!
Can we please just finally move on from sexualising family members??
So that CLEARLY didn't work for me.
And while the rest of the story was okay, it was also quiet boring and moving in a way to slow pacing for me to really get invested into the story.
I liked Buddy, but the rest i was just not caring at all for.
I also wasn't really enjoying the constant switch between the characters because i always felt like the one i wanted to hear more about was just not getting enough pages!
The writing was okay, but once again nothing that kept sucking me back into the story, and since how the story was actually told wasn't really working for me, i can't say that i loved the writing.
And as i said, if i start a book and want to close it right away again because the start makes my interest go away in seconds? That book has to pack a BIG punch to actually impress me.
This was not doing that for me.
So sadly, this book didn't work for me.
If you like strange books and don't mind slow pacing and unnecessary many character points of views but pretty good writing?
give this a try.
If not... maybe stay away from this one.
This book was very strange -which i was expecting! I mean com on! We are talking about a family that apparently is able to perform magic. So clearly it was going to be strange.
But it was too strange for me if that makes any sense.
I hated the opening scene of this book.
Which is not a good way to start a book for me! I do always have a hard time connecting to a book if the first few pages do not work for me! It just sets the tone for the entire book for me, and sadly in this one? It was not working for me!
But i am just not a big fan of being greeted with a masturbation scene where a male cousin gets off on watching his female cousin.
Because just... NO!
I am sorry but NO!
Can we please just finally move on from sexualising family members??
So that CLEARLY didn't work for me.
And while the rest of the story was okay, it was also quiet boring and moving in a way to slow pacing for me to really get invested into the story.
I liked Buddy, but the rest i was just not caring at all for.
I also wasn't really enjoying the constant switch between the characters because i always felt like the one i wanted to hear more about was just not getting enough pages!
The writing was okay, but once again nothing that kept sucking me back into the story, and since how the story was actually told wasn't really working for me, i can't say that i loved the writing.
And as i said, if i start a book and want to close it right away again because the start makes my interest go away in seconds? That book has to pack a BIG punch to actually impress me.
This was not doing that for me.
So sadly, this book didn't work for me.
If you like strange books and don't mind slow pacing and unnecessary many character points of views but pretty good writing?
give this a try.
If not... maybe stay away from this one.
Spoonbenders was not what I expected it to be. The description on the flyleaf had me thinking this would be a fast-paced, action-packed story of psychic powers in the "real" world. Instead, this story builds more slowly to its climax. I was a little put off by the pacing at the beginning, but I'm glad I stuck with this one, as once it gets up a head of steam, it's quite good; I had a tough time even putting it down for the last quarter of the book, where it seemed like the story could end on the next page, but there were still several dozen pages left.
The Amazing Telemachus Family is both more and less than what it seems to be, and each member of the family gets their own alternating chapters, each of which develops the story of the family through both ongoing events and flashbacks to help fill in the picture of their past. The alternating perspectives are nicely done and illustrate well how what we think we see on the surface is not always matched by what is going on inside a person.
In addition to some interesting character work, the plot, once it starts to unfold, is a real grabber. There's some sex, some drugs, and while there's not rock 'n roll, there's mobsters, which might be more big-band in my head, but which makes for a decent substitution here.
This story does a nice job of tracing the coming-of-age and development of three generations of the Telemachus family, showing how family history and the experiences and personalities of our relatives interweave to help create and shape us. Plus, there's psychic powers! Spies! Shadowy government agencies! Mobsters! Casinos! And micro-lepton guns!
Give this one a chance; you won't regret it.
The Amazing Telemachus Family is both more and less than what it seems to be, and each member of the family gets their own alternating chapters, each of which develops the story of the family through both ongoing events and flashbacks to help fill in the picture of their past. The alternating perspectives are nicely done and illustrate well how what we think we see on the surface is not always matched by what is going on inside a person.
In addition to some interesting character work, the plot, once it starts to unfold, is a real grabber. There's some sex, some drugs, and while there's not rock 'n roll, there's mobsters, which might be more big-band in my head, but which makes for a decent substitution here.
This story does a nice job of tracing the coming-of-age and development of three generations of the Telemachus family, showing how family history and the experiences and personalities of our relatives interweave to help create and shape us. Plus, there's psychic powers! Spies! Shadowy government agencies! Mobsters! Casinos! And micro-lepton guns!
Give this one a chance; you won't regret it.
DNF at about 70%.
This book feels absolutely pointless. The characters we should feel for are annoying, the rest are plain dicks. A bunch of things happen, but nothing feels like it has a meaning. It's quirky for the sake of quirky, nothing leads anywhere, we just have stupid side story after stupid side story. Don't get me wrong, I like stories that have layers, but not when it all just gets tossed in. Spies and Russians and mob and robbing the mob and seeing the future, but also like kids being fucking weird, but internet dating and like saving the wife of a criminal's son who is fucking over his dad but nobody knows shit , TV shows, super powers, but also cons aaand MLM crap.
Everyone is an annoying fuck. Now I know why nobody really talked about the ACTUAL plot, just used big words that mean nothing to describe it. Do not recommend.
This book feels absolutely pointless. The characters we should feel for are annoying, the rest are plain dicks. A bunch of things happen, but nothing feels like it has a meaning. It's quirky for the sake of quirky, nothing leads anywhere, we just have stupid side story after stupid side story. Don't get me wrong, I like stories that have layers, but not when it all just gets tossed in. Spies and Russians and mob and robbing the mob and seeing the future, but also like kids being fucking weird, but internet dating and like saving the wife of a criminal's son who is fucking over his dad but nobody knows shit , TV shows, super powers, but also cons aaand MLM crap.
Everyone is an annoying fuck. Now I know why nobody really talked about the ACTUAL plot, just used big words that mean nothing to describe it. Do not recommend.