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wewereundone 's review for:
The Great Santini
by Pat Conroy
This book was a disappointment to me. I put it down several times, and always had to force myself to go back and pick it up (just because I hate to leave a book unfinished.) Unlike other reviewers, I found the prose totally disengaging; the drawn out passages about nature or flying or the Marines did not add any depth to the story that I could see. I felt like each chapter was a fragment of a complete story, and none of the fragments connected. I kept waiting for a chapter to build upon another, for a character to be brought back to add meaning to the next fragment. With very few exceptions, this did not happen. This led to a feeling like the book could use a really good editor. The first 1/5 and the final 1/5 were the best portions, with the middle feeling like an overstuffed sausage of images that didn't add anything to character development or plot. Ironically, the ending felt very rushed, and I finished the final page upset that I had wasted time plowing through the dull middle. Although most of our time is spent with the eldest son, Ben, the character development of him (and everyone else) is really lacking. Two dimensional is most places, which made the addition of a 3rd dimension very noticeable and all the more upsetting. I am a big fan of rereading books I enjoy, but I will not go back and reread this book again.