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Loading... Arlington Parkby Rachel Cusk
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Only made it about 80 pages into this one. Had heard great things about the writer and had high hopes (it started out well enough), but just felt dreary, repetitive, pointless, and bourgeois. Still, clearly a gifted writer though may need better subject matter and/or more interesting characters. ( )In Arlington Park, Rachel Cusk makes us voyeurs, peeping into the consciouses and minivans of our most hideous demographic...(read more) Meh, nothing special. Somewhat unsatisfying. It tells of the lives of several women in an English suburb over the course of a day but seemed to be just a constant moan about motherhood and being a woman. Filled with unnecessary metaphors, I really didn't enjoy it. The story of one day in the life of some suburban housewives in England, their thoughts on life in general and the choices they made that brought them to the place where they are maried and living in a suburb, taking care of kids and a house and shopping at the mall and having dinner parties. Excellent writing but more along the lines of the characters speaking in a stream of consciousness mode with no real plot or story development. no reviews | add a review
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While Arlington Park may deal in toddlers and tater tots, it is certainly not another generic Mommy Lit clone. Cusk is a skilled writer, and in her hands, a dreary lunch at the mall food court is transformed into "lost property, but for people." As the day progresses, we watch as Juliet chops her hair off in a small, if meaningless act of rebellion, Amanda stifles a burning desire to scream at a neighbor's kid for ruining her white sofa, Maisie blames her parents for not loving her enough while throwing her daughter's lunchbox at the kitchen wall, and Christine stuffs chicken breasts while silently cursing her husband for spending too much time getting ready for a dinner party. In each scene, the oppressiveness is almost unbearable, prompting readers to practically beg these women to flee as far and as fast as is humanely possible.
Of course, in driving her readers to the edge of frustration and outrage, Cusk succeeds in creating a novel that penetrates deeper than most. Still, after turning the last page, you might find yourself reaching for a little Mommy Lit candy to take the edge off. --Gisele Toueg
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:56 -0400)
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