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A review by khornstein1
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
3.0
Modern novelists (even successful ones) seem to have great difficulty ending novels. Why?
Remember "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge wakes up and is a new man? And there is both the excitement of the day, "And the bed was his own!" and an ongoing happily ever aspect--Tiny Tim lives! Scrooge becomes a great Uncle! Or "Rebecca" when Manderley burns down but the nameless narrator and Maximilian presumably have some fairly okay ongoing relationship? (Perhaps that's not the best example because I'm always sad about Manderley burning down...but Max does change for the better.
Modern Lovers has good characters (and they're all Oberlin alums--yay!) I like the realistic depiction of Brooklyn, especially a lesser-known neighborhood and one I worked in years ago, before it became gentrified. And then there's suspense: what will happen to the lost cat? Will Andrew lose all his money in the phony real estate investment?
And then...as is so often the case in novels I read this day....nothing. Why am I reading this? I don't want this to be like real life when I've invested so much time in these characters. Why can't one of them really change? Or do something really unexpected? Worth reading if you accept the lack of a good ending or you're an Oberlin alum.
Remember "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge wakes up and is a new man? And there is both the excitement of the day, "And the bed was his own!" and an ongoing happily ever aspect--Tiny Tim lives! Scrooge becomes a great Uncle! Or "Rebecca" when Manderley burns down but the nameless narrator and Maximilian presumably have some fairly okay ongoing relationship? (Perhaps that's not the best example because I'm always sad about Manderley burning down...but Max does change for the better.
Modern Lovers has good characters (and they're all Oberlin alums--yay!) I like the realistic depiction of Brooklyn, especially a lesser-known neighborhood and one I worked in years ago, before it became gentrified. And then there's suspense: what will happen to the lost cat? Will Andrew lose all his money in the phony real estate investment?
And then...as is so often the case in novels I read this day....nothing. Why am I reading this? I don't want this to be like real life when I've invested so much time in these characters. Why can't one of them really change? Or do something really unexpected? Worth reading if you accept the lack of a good ending or you're an Oberlin alum.