So many interesting ideas in this well written novel... image, memory, the information economy. I started re-reading it immediately upon finishing it. ( )

This was an interesting book. No real plot that I could tell but I still read it.

The reason?

The characters. Each character is so interesting and so different, yet they are all interconnected in some way. They have their secrets, their faults and I just couldn't wait to see what was going to happen to them next.

So, who are these people?

There is the main character, Charlotte, a twenty-something model that had to have reconstructive surgery to her face after a car accident. Her old high school friend, Ellen, who is now married and has two children, one in remission from leukimia. The eldest, Charlotte, is sixteen, experimenting with sex and older men. Her uncle and Ellen's brother, Moose, a brilliant but troubled professor, who was institutionalized for awhile.

Like I said, interesting and captivating. It is like finding out about the gossip of people you once knew. ( )

I liked the study of identity and the picture at the end of the "hard, beautiful seashells left behind long after the living creatures within have struggled free and swum away." Several descriptions in the book are spot-on like this and make it worth reading.

A few of the characters are incomplete, I think Michael West is one of them despite the author's focus on and controversy surrounding him. The Good Samaritan in the beginning isn't sufficiently explored, despite the ending.

Some of the male characters come across as charicatures: Michael West and Anthony Halliday. But Charlotte's (elder) identity is explored with depth and feeling. The middle of the book is fantastically written, as we start to get inside her head. ( )

A tale of two Charlottes, both with identity problems. The first is a model who has a horrific traffic accident, breaking every bone in her face. Reconstructive surgery leaves her attractive, but unrecognizable to her friends and acquaintances. The second Charlotte is the teenage daughter of a friend of the first, cruelly labeled by her friends, and going through a “coming of age” crises. Just about everyone in the novel is having problems of one type or another with who they are.

And that is part of the problem that I had with the novel. It seemed unfocused and rambling. There were a lot of characters and points of view - too many? It was a tiring novel to read, and I had to force myself to finish it.

From a craft perspective, Egan not only alternates between characters, but changes from first person to third person and back, something that is not quite as transparent and seamless as it should be. She starts with Charlotte the model in first person, then introduces Charlotte the teenager in third person, goes back to the model, this time in third person, introduces a confusing array of other characters in third person, and finally gets back to the first person narration of Charlotte the model. Confusing - and tiring.

And there is one character, the mysterious “Z”, who is never tied up at the end. I hate dangling plot lines that are never resolved.

Other than that, there is a lot to be absorbed here - it was a finalist for the National Book Award.

http://forreststokes.com/wordpress/?p... ( )

Two Charlottes, an elder and a younger, trying to find their way in a world that worships beauty. Just one problem…they’re not beautiful. The elder - a supermodel who has been in a car accident. The younger - a shy, intuitive young girl who was born nothing like a supermodel. An insightful perception of American culture.

The final images are as haunting as they are prophetic. ( )