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justjoel 's review for:
House of Sand and Fog
by Andre Dubus III
I waffled on the rating for this a lot before deciding it really is a 2-star book for me.
It started rough and slow for me. I enjoyed the first section—getting to know Colonel Behrani and his family, how he has set aside his pride to try to make a better life for his family in an unfamiliar country.
Then Kathy Nicolo appeared, and I didn't like her nearly as much. Or at all, really. And this section of the book is where it started to get problematic for me. I was okay with the first-person narrative for the Colonel and Kathy, but when Lester was introduced and his sections were in third-person, well, I thought it was just a weird writing choice from an author either not talented or experienced enough to tell his story another way.
I felt like the near insta-love between Kathy and Lester was not believable, and neither was the way she lost her home.
This book was a tedious exercise in frustration for me, and I wanted to like it so much more than I did. I felt like there was a lot of potential in it that just never went anywhere. The ending was equally unsatisfying as the journey it took to get there.
2 out of 5 stars.
It started rough and slow for me. I enjoyed the first section—getting to know Colonel Behrani and his family, how he has set aside his pride to try to make a better life for his family in an unfamiliar country.
Then Kathy Nicolo appeared, and I didn't like her nearly as much. Or at all, really. And this section of the book is where it started to get problematic for me. I was okay with the first-person narrative for the Colonel and Kathy, but when Lester was introduced and his sections were in third-person, well, I thought it was just a weird writing choice from an author either not talented or experienced enough to tell his story another way.
I felt like the near insta-love between Kathy and Lester was not believable, and neither was the way she lost her home.
Spoiler
Taxes aren't charged to addresses—they're charged to people—so why would a notice be sent in her name to her address, but be called a clerical error because someone made a typo when they entered the address? It would have the name of the person who owed the taxes on the letter: not hers—utterly unbelievable.This book was a tedious exercise in frustration for me, and I wanted to like it so much more than I did. I felt like there was a lot of potential in it that just never went anywhere. The ending was equally unsatisfying as the journey it took to get there.
2 out of 5 stars.