Many moons ago, I was watching TV in our living room and my brother was reading this. All of a sudden, the book came flying by my head. He had gotten so scared he threw the book across the room! I said to myself, "I've got to read that book!'
Can a female writer be a mysogynist? If so, then Weatherwax is. The main character is a cardboard cutout and entirely unbelieavable. But Weatherwax is a very good writer.
America's best poet, bar none.
It's hard to believe how a writer I once considered the best in America, regardless of genre, has fallen in my estimation. I won't even pick up his next one, already released, because this was the absolute worst of his last five. As I've said before, I believe his earlier works are pure literature.
Didn't really understand all the acclaim this small novel received. I wish Goodreads allowed half stars, more like a 2 1/2.
On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries) by Alice Goffman
Even though I give this one star mostly for the author's arcane premise that criminals commit crimes because of their social station and life, the book is worth a read for its portray of the actors in the inner city crime problem. The author completely negates the role of personal responsibility as a factor.
Astonishing debut for one of the finest, if not THE finest, writers of fiction in America.
Waldman is an extremely deft writer. She would have to be to keep me reading about the pangs and travails of a narcissist whose every thought occasions myriad questionings of his intentions and ramifications of same. Gets tiresome after a while but she's also very good at characterization and if the scenes take place nearly all in the pre-gentrified apartments and uber-gentrified coffee shops and restaurants of Brooklyn, Waldman is nevertheless an astute chronicler of literary New York.
Anybody else and I would have given this four stars. But it's not anybody else, it's Elizabeth Strout. First 3/4 is defintely a 5 but it tails off at the end into a lot of tidying up and some of the main elements of the story arc get short shrift such as the dissolution of the main characters' marriage but perhaps she thought she covered all of that in Olive Kittredge? Just didn't feel right.
Otherwise, a masterful storyteller still at the top of her craft. And what could be better as dual settings than Maine and Manhattan?
Otherwise, a masterful storyteller still at the top of her craft. And what could be better as dual settings than Maine and Manhattan?
The first half of this is brilliant and the second half is so-so.
Not his best; not his work. Plot is fast-paced but believability quotient is fairly low.
I read the 2nd one in this new series first. They're both a bit uneven but an uneven Jim Fusilli is still better than 99.99% of all ofther crime/detective fiction. And this gives the insight into the reason why John Bleak has become who he is -- the quintessential drifter/loner set of by the annihilation of a loved one by evil forces.
As fine a poet as is writing in America today.
Clearly the best American poet writing today. Astonishment at and within every line is an understatement. Ruefle writes on a different plane(t) than any other writer alive.
Fairly basic stuff that you can find in detail in many other places/books but he does a good job compiling lots of statistics.
Tiger mother? Or any 'ethnic' mother with a fierce desire to give her children a better life than the one she had. Yeah, she's a bit nuts at times and gives in to the never-ending roller coaster of multiple children's activities but this is intense writing and a glimpse into a world many may never see otherwise. Had first hand knowledge of this world in 9th grade Biology when Ernest Chin wept in class when he did not get an A on test and was afraid of what parents' reaction would be. I didn't feel too badly for him because his tears quickly subsided when he found out I got a better grade than he did. He was totally pissed at that.
Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work by Jeanne Marie Laskas
Could have been much better were the author not so enamored of herself. Few authors can do the Tom Wolfe immersion journalism very well and she could have benefited from a more distanced narrative voice. Otherwise, the subject matter was beyond fascinating.
Not Mayor's best but still better than the average mystery.
Shades of brilliance but too often she tailors her ideas into her own thought process about the subject at hand. What could be a an expansive essay into the unknown of the past gets trammeled by her forays into her own deeply held political beliefs -- in essence, Lepore is guilty of that most grievous of historian's sins - ahistoricizing by imputing one's current beliefs and mores into the past.
A stunning portrayal of domestic life as seen through the eyes of a young married couple.