Goldengrove

Pretty heavy and sad but I enjoyed the psychology behind the grief and confusion Nico experiences when her big sister dies and her sister's secret boyfriend starts paying attention to her. ( )

The story begins with the drowning death of Margaret, sister to Nico and girlfriend of Aaron. Everyone deals with death in his own way, but Nico and Aaron have a particularly bizarre way of working through their feelings. What was interesting about this was the psychology of the situation. Was Nico really trying to step into Margaret's shoes? How about Aaron? Was he really trying to turn Nico into Margaret? This was a believable story and a good introduction for me into the writing of Francine Prose. It grabbed me enough to want to seek more of her novels. ( )

I forced myself to finish this book, probably because I kept thinking it would have to get better, that something important was going to happen. Nope. It was just a long, excruciatingly sad slow buildup to nothing. And all that mawkish, sappy teenage angst stuff, along with the grief psychobabble. Where was the rising action, climax and denouement? And sorry, but all that final tidying up of loose ends in the final chapters just didn't work for me. This book should have been clearly labeled YA, and maybe 'chick lit' YA at that. Only my opinion, I know, and as a friend of mine used to say, "Opinions are like a**holes. Everybody's got one."
I'm still thinking about the book, which I just finished reading this morning, breathing a sigh of relief - and disappointment. Like the rapture stuff in the book, maybe she should have titled it, "The Great Disappointment." I'm afraid I can't give it more than two stars. Again, my opinion. But I'm glad I only paid a few bucks for this book off a remainder table.
If you wanna read a really good Francine Prose book, then try BLUE ANGEL. That one really grabbed me and kept me going. A rather frighteningly good book, actually. Maybe that's why this one so surprised and disappointed me.
Or if you wanna read a really good book also called GOLDENGROVE, then hunt up a copy of Darryl Ponicsan's novel from the 70s. He was the author of THE LAST DETAIL and I read all of his books until he disappeared into the neverland of screenwriting out west, not so surprising, I suppose, considering his uncanny ear for dialogue that always rang true. Now he's turned to painting in the Sonoma Valley.
So here I am writing about other books (and authors) instead of Prose's GOLDENGROVE. Maybe because I kept thinking, while reading it, that I would rather be reading something else - something better. To borrow an expression from her book, this read was a "Debbie Downer." ( )

I liked this book more than I expected to based on having read Prose's nonfiction title "Reading Like a Writer." The narrator, Nico, is instantly recognizable as a girl in her early teens, just on the cusp of being an adolescent and not a child any longer. This book provides what feels like a very authentic window into profound grief, describing it in ways that seem to make sense even to someone who has not experienced such a loss as the sudden and untimely death of a sister. There is some fairly twisted stuff at the end, but the book never reaches past the point of believability. I also enjoyed how poetry, music and films are folded into the book in different, completely relevant ways. Made me want to read more of Prose's fiction. ( )

Well written but almost exhaustingly detailed. Because I was listening to the audio version I kept going....but I definitely wished I could speed up the reading speed to get to the end. ( )