All Souls

All Souls is the story of the Siddons School, a girls prep school in New York City, in 1997. In truth, it's not really a story per se with a defined plot line. I found it more a kaleidoscope of character sketches as Ms. Schutt describes various students, teachers, and parents as the school year passes. A central figure is Astra Dell who is in the hospital with a rare form of cancer as the book begins. She is in her senior year, a lovely, kind girl who was a dancer before her illness struck. It is her absence from the school that impacts the others in the book in various ways.
Ms. Schutt has a definite style of writing that I very much enjoyed. Her word choices are lovely, and the result is almost a tone poem.
There's a variety of show more characters. Most of the girls are privileged, but there's the one scholarship girl. Most are recognizable types along with their brittle mothers and absent fathers. The teachers are also standard prep school figures, but it doesn't matter because they are all described in a unique and lovely manner. I often found myself reading aloud, mouthing the phrases, tasting the words as they flowed. I imagine this book is not to everyone's taste, but I can see why it won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. show less

This is the kind of book that makes me feel that I'm not getting quite enough oxygen. The writing is excellent but somehow a bit rarefied - there are many characters, but I never felt much empathy or even understanding for a single one of them.

The characters are the students (seniors all) and teachers of an exclusive girls' school in Manhattan (in 1997, for some reason), along with a few assorted parents, with the hub of the story being Astra Dell, a senior with a particularly virulent form of cancer. Astra's illness affects all the characters to a greater or (often) lesser degree, but the girl herself remains a cipher.

If there were more warmth or immediacy to this slim book, I would recommend it to older YAs - but unfortunately, the show more diamond-clear writing simply makes everything feel a bit cold. show less

This is a brief glimpse into a girls' private high school in Manhattan with an assortment of senior girls, each of whom carries her own particular set of problems and aspirations. There are also several teachers whose lives we view with candor. At the center is a classmate diagnosed with cancer, who is the pivotal point for the book. I didn't feel any particular connection to anyone in this book, and found the format difficult to follow initially. There were too many characters to keep straight given the brief insight into one before another was followed. I also had no real sense of Astra as a person, just as a cancer victim.

This book describes senior year at an all-girls school in Manhattan. Overall, I liked the format of the short chapters following different girls and their parents (mostly mothers) in their experiences. But at times that format left me wondering, "What just happened?" The story felt a little disjointed at times. Very well written book though.

I began reading this book with high hopes - Christine Schutt is an award winning novelist, and All Souls was a 2009 Pulitzer finalist for fiction. Unfortunately, it was a huge let down. The "bones" of the story are good, but it is extremely disjointed and could have been better with either twice the pages or half the characters involved. The excessive cast of characters come across as one-dimensional, clichéd, and poorly developed.

There are some beautiful passages in All Souls, but most of the writing is clumsy and difficult to trudge through. Schutt's style takes some getting used to and the story just wasn't long enough to get me there. I am glad that I checked this one out at the library and did not purchase it.

I only got about 60 pages in before giving up on this one. Too many silly, self-indulgent characters about whom I cared nothing.

A bit of a snoozer.