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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
A story abt a weed dealer, an anti abortion activist, a proliferation protester, and an abortion clinic worker and the ways their lives intersect. It’s interesting b/c while the novel is abt an abortion clinic, 3 of the main characters are men in various stages of messed up. It makes for an interesting read and is less abt abortion (although that’s def there) than abt how these ppl came to their understandings of the abortion debate (or came to sell weed and then—with weed abt to be legalized—realized their career options were limited). Funnier than I expected, too.
This is an intense, engaging novel. Hard to read in parts, as she gets into the heads of people who threaten abortion clinics. But quite a compelling read.
The author is clearly a talented writer, and her portrait of rural poverty has a lot of spot-on details. She also really embodies each of her characters, which makes every chapter feel distinct even though they are all told from a third person perspective. I was excited to read it when I saw a newspaper review that praised this book's nuance and humor, but I found both to be lacking here.
I really loved the characters and the writing style. I kept waiting for the plot to go to the usual place....but it never did. On one hand I was glad but on the other I felt like it didn't really go anywhere.
I love Haigh's character development and use of language ("besh*tted" to describe a beat-up car is pretty brilliant). The ending? Not sure if it was thought-provoking or an easy way out.
I won this in a GoodReads giveaway, and overall I enjoyed the book. It held my attention and the characters were believable. The intersection of lives of people of very different backgrounds and belief systems reminds us that we often want to put people into neat little boxes that really can't contain them.
The characters were nuanced and flawed, and I liked that about them. There was no perfect hero in the story, but rather human beings, all of them. I felt in many ways that the story was leading up to a big climax and that it then kind of fizzled out. At first, I was disappointed by the ending, with everyone just kind of settling down and moving on to the next thing. But then I thought maybe that was the point, that real, flawed humans often do go really aggressively after one thing and then just...let it go and move on.
Ultimately, the book made me consider the points of view of wildly different characters. Although there were things I didn't necessarily like about the direction the plot took, this book did cause me to open my mind and really think. I have to admire it for that.
The characters were nuanced and flawed, and I liked that about them. There was no perfect hero in the story, but rather human beings, all of them. I felt in many ways that the story was leading up to a big climax and that it then kind of fizzled out. At first, I was disappointed by the ending, with everyone just kind of settling down and moving on to the next thing. But then I thought maybe that was the point, that real, flawed humans often do go really aggressively after one thing and then just...let it go and move on.
Ultimately, the book made me consider the points of view of wildly different characters. Although there were things I didn't necessarily like about the direction the plot took, this book did cause me to open my mind and really think. I have to admire it for that.
I really enjoyed this, probably because I was picturing Boston in the winter and the different neighborhoods. This was a kind of quiet book with a good study of characters, which I enjoyed.
[spoiler-ish] This started reasonably strong but fell flat in the end, in my opinion. It's a good exercise in character study, but fails at plot.
The book features the perspectives of four different characters, and the primary one about whom we learn the most with the most backstory works at a Boston clinic that provides abortions. Her job is the impetus for the conflict. Throughout the book, the reader knows the characters are loosely bumping up against each other in ways the characters do not, and the plot seems to be building toward a climax of bringing them together. Until it just doesn't.
The book features the perspectives of four different characters, and the primary one about whom we learn the most with the most backstory works at a Boston clinic that provides abortions. Her job is the impetus for the conflict. Throughout the book, the reader knows the characters are loosely bumping up against each other in ways the characters do not, and the plot seems to be building toward a climax of bringing them together. Until it just doesn't.