The Tall Pine Polka

This is the 3rd book by Lorna I've read. I love her! (The neat thing is she writes about Minnesota. There is a scent at the State Fair, in Hinkley and Duluth, etc). Not as good as Patty Jane's House of Curl, but still great! It is funny and the characters are true to life along with the story; events seem to follow how life is.. haphazard and not always good. The characters prevail with love. Characters: Fenny, Big Bill, Lee, Slim, Miss Penk and Frau Katte.

I didn't like this quite as well as Landvik's other works. If you're a fan of hers, it's still worth reading, but the characters are not quite as real. Some of them (e.g., the Swiss lesbian with the thick, annoying accent) are almost caricatures. The romance in the book is not terribly believable, either. And a good editor could probably cut about 50 pages. That said, she is still a wonderful writer, and if you loved her other books, you should probably give this one a chance.

Landvik scores another winner with Oh My Stars. If you have ever felt ugly, unloved, left out, or been unable to recognize love, you will sob your way through this book. Violet, who is homely and unloved struggles, and just as things improve her 16th birthday brings catastrophe. She decides she should take a bus trip to California to kill her self by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But her bus travels lead her to a different life. I have never given any other book a 5, but I read this one in under 24 hours and cried most of the way through.

I liked this book, but not as much as I really wanted to, and nowhere near as much as I enjoyed some of Landvik's other offerings. Though the cast of characters was initially interesting, they all seemed a little too eccentric as the novel progressed. The movie in a small town element was done better in the movie State and Main, and I for one thought there were too many subplots running throughout the novel which overcomplicated it all.

I did think that Fenny, Bill and Lee were well-drawn, developed characters, but found the entire ex-husband/abuse story line deserved more inital attention especially given its sudden importance halfway though the story. The Hollywood people all seemed fairly shallowly drawn, and poor Boyd never really show more got the development he deserved.

Truthfully, even a mediocre Landvik novel is better than a lot of other books out there, but I was disappointed that this novel didn't live up to her usual high standards. Probably deserves a 3.5 if we had that option. show less

This is another great book!

I had read almost 400 pages. I had enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot. I thought I knew what to expect as the book was coming to a close and then.....I actually shouted "NO!!" I was so surprised by one sudden turn of events I couldn't be quiet!

That's what Landvik did for me in this story!

Fenny Ness is a stay at home, afraid of her shadow, twenty-something hidden away in the tiny Northern Minnesota town of Tall Pines. Fenny is surrounded by her good friends; Lee, the owner of the Cup'O Delight coffee shop, Slim, the barking bus boy/man overcoming the lingering remnants of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, Frau Katte and Miss Penk the aging lesbian couple, Pete the shoe repairman who secretly runs a thriving show more mail-order business for handmade shoes, and the mayor. Each of these people works to fill the holes created by the sudden deaths of Fenny's parents. She is happy in this old lady life where everything is predictable and safe.

Into this cliched small town life a movie director is dropped, and Fenny is 'discovered.' Fenny becomes Inga, the fresh mail-order bride, ordered by Ike, a Minnesota lumberman. So, not only is Tall Pines over run with the film makers, but Fenny is also the reluctant star. Her no-nonsense charm washes over the actors, directors and the audience alike transforming a mundane little film into something as magical as the actual Tall Pines.

Midway though the story - Bill, a 1/2 Chippewa and 1/2 Hawaiian piano playing jack of all trades also drops into the scene and the real life in Tall Pines takes turn after turn for both Lee and Fenny.

In that real life there is a shooting ( the gun kind, not the film kind), a death, a birth, a marriage, and a couple of fights.

It's one of those books that could have stopped long before it did. I would have been satisfied, but longed for more. Instead, it rode out the turmoil and resolved itself in a way that only Landvik could.

This is a really good one!!! :) show less

I really wanted to like this but I simply couldn't relate to the characters enough to finish this book. It was a little too silly for my tastes and that's saying something if you know anything about me.

A makeshift "family" of diverse characters get together nearly every day at the local Cup O' Delight Cafe, drawing on the love and strength of each other. Then on Saturday nights, they have a "Tall Pine Polka," described more as a state of mind, in which the sing, dance, and nourishe their souls.