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chyneyee 's review for:

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
3.5
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The writing style and descriptions are superbly beautiful. It has an expansive vocabulary, and I gave up looking for the meanings unless necessary. Although beautifully written, it can be long-winded and crowded with superfluous details. I ignore the bigotry jokes (due to the geographical history and publishing year) so that it does not contribute to my rating. It's a solid story that reflects the author's life. 

I strongly dislike the main character Tom because he has full of unfunny jokes, self-pity, and is an egotistical person. In fact, there are no loveable characters in this story, and Luke probably is the only one that can be slightly more acceptable than others. I feel Savannah is very observant and sees more things than others in the family. It's a family tragedy, or according to Savannah in the story, it's a very screwed-up family. Both Luke and Savannah are fighters but not Tom.

I'm very conflicted and in a dilemma in rating this book. It's a good story if ignoring the racist and sexist jokes plus long-winded details, which deserves a 4 out of 5. But I don't like wordy books, and I don't like most of the characters, especially Tom. Maybe it's 3.5 out of 5?

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