Now and Then

I read all these positive comments about the book, and decided to read it, but every time I read a summary for it, the cynical part of my head (...that might be most of it) kept rewording the summaries: 'This story alternates between viewpoints of Chris NOW, when he is probably a depressing, remote, annoying old man who has wasted his life and is now starting to regret it, and where you get to see how he interacts in probably very true-to-life-but-who-says-that-makes-it-fun-to-watch ways with his family, and THEN when he was younger, more naive, and also probably angsty and obsessive and stupid. You will get into it because it is well-done, wishing something good and refreashing will happen to the characters, when really it's just show more getting more hopeless, and then it will end with good 'closure' and the main character will finally be able to 'move on,' but won't really leave you exactly feeling like it was a good, worthwhile experience for them, either (even if maybe you know it was). It will be a good book/ending because it is well written and realistic, but you will also moan and want to strangle it and wish you could find writing like this in happier (perferably fantasy) stories.'

Avoiding it on my shelf for a while, I eventually glanced through some of the earlier pages, and what do you know if the guy isn't actually kind of snarky and nice and not completely self pitying and angsty! And his mother's an awesome lady, kind of like him! I actually care about how their relationship is going to end up! And the tone is a little more upbeat than you would ever expect! Maybe this will not only be good, but also actually your style!

...And it was!!!! ....For the first chunk. ...And then it turned in to exactly what I thought. ^_^ (though for the record, his mother stayed cool. but the whole subplot just seemed to lose importance after a while) I'm not saying that makes it bad, of course, but... Aah, well... Rated for what it is it would probably get a 9... Rated for my appreciation of it... Oh, hell, I still can't bear to give it less than an 8. And I was VERY sad to find the author died of cancer and I imagine won't exactly have any new books coming out any time soon. T_T show less

A well written novel about an older man looking back on his life, now filled with regret and missed chances. A maudlin story lifted by exceptional writing.

Older guy revisits his past and discovers a new way to look at his present lifestyle. Having come out fairly early in life I guess I feel rather jaded reading these stories of tormented older men finally coming to their senses and seeing how much they have missed out of life. This modus strikes me as being rather obtuse...but nevertheless, the book is fairly well written.