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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Love, love, love! I think Chabon is at his best in his novels, and I loved the exotic history woven from a simple change of plans (what if Alaska became the Jewish homeland, rather than Israel?). Plus, a mystery! Lots of sectarian quirks, Alaskan topography.... so much fun.
Love Michael Chabon but why does every novel he write end up with a major character being gay? Like every novel.
Great plot and world-building but you'll find too many lines written like this: "He tries and fails not to observe the way her heavy breasts, each of whose moles and freckles her can still project like the constellations against the planetarium dome of his imagination, strain against the placket and pockets of her shirt."
I actually liked the characters and the mystery but I kept feeling like I wasn't "getting" something.
Very enjoyable, although didn't live up to the awesomeness of Kavalier and Clay.
It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I did, I did enjoy it. The style of writing reminds me a lot of Ed McBain or even more so, Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys, which I read when I was much too young to read and should probably re-read as an adult.
This book so convincingly tells the story of an alternate history of a Jewish resettlement in Alaska that I had to double check that there really wasn't a Jewish settlement in Alaska. The details felt so truthful. I enjoyed the story, which to me felt like a mix between a murder mystery and an espionage tale.
This book so convincingly tells the story of an alternate history of a Jewish resettlement in Alaska that I had to double check that there really wasn't a Jewish settlement in Alaska. The details felt so truthful. I enjoyed the story, which to me felt like a mix between a murder mystery and an espionage tale.
@ Michael Chabon &co., if you're reading this, I literally could not care less who plays Meyer in the series but please cast Natasha Lyonne as Bina and Adam Beach as Berko Shemets thanks
I love Michael Chabon and think he's brilliant, but I think I missed a lot of humor in this book because I'm not as well-versed in Yiddish as I thought I was. I would have liked to have read this with a glossary, except I don't know that I would have known what to look up unless it was marked in some way.
I picked this back up. Doing better.
Alright, I FINALLY finished this. it just took 5 months. I must be one of the only people I know who read this book who didn't really enjoy it. There were parts that picked up, but overall I wasn't that impressed. I don't know whether it was the culture piece, or the language, or the yiddish, but i had a really tough time following some of the story. And the ending was disappointing. Oh well.
Alright, I FINALLY finished this. it just took 5 months. I must be one of the only people I know who read this book who didn't really enjoy it. There were parts that picked up, but overall I wasn't that impressed. I don't know whether it was the culture piece, or the language, or the yiddish, but i had a really tough time following some of the story. And the ending was disappointing. Oh well.
Loose-cannon cop meets film noir meets Hello Muddah Hello Fadduh meets your Jewish aunts arguing in the kitchen mixing in Yiddish. In this speculative fiction novel, Chabon envisions a world where following WWII, the exiled Jews found their new home in a series of islands off the Alaskan coast. Sixty years later, reversion back to US control is on the horizon while a lonely, ragged homicide detective winds up with a murder practically on his door step. Chabon writes the most amazing prose dripping in dead-on descriptions painting the perfect picture. And if you listen to the audio CD, oh my GAWD Peter Riegert. He's so perfect with all the perfect voices for the characters and the right inflections to demonstrate a Jewish/Yiddish accent. This book was captivating and fast-paced with enough slower spots to bring you into the cold, barren, unstable world of the Sitka Jews.