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April books, Part I:
Great
The Way the Crow Flies. I’ve been waiting to read this book, Macdonald’s second after Fall on Your Knees, which was awesome, for a long time. It didn’t disappoint. I felt like I lived in the characters’ world whilst reading it. I spent whole days in Cold War Canada on a little Air Force base with a dashing pilot father and Acadian mother. The book is terribly long, by layman’s standards, but Macdonald treats every sentence as though it were the only one. She is a master at her craft. The only problem with this book is that she hasn’t yet written another.
Fair:
-While Mulvaneys is always good, I think I’ve already re-read and reviewed it favorably this year so I will leave it there. TTW by Niffenegger is always a good read, but her characters seem a little like insufferable prats the more time you spend with them. Not good. You’re supposed to love the characters more each time you encounter them, I think. Elizabeth Berg is amazing but her stories are a bit like candy floss: Not very filling, but always delicious.
Middling:
-the Patchett book. I wanted to like it, ‘deed I did, and the plot was going going going somewhere and then it just stopped. As though she had reached a word limit. It might as well have been mid-sentence. Chris Bohjalian should really have stopped after Midwives. His latest book requires a serious leap of credulity, and isn’t well-written or interesting enough to justify the leap. He does this funky thing, where he writes in third person omniscent and jumps around in the same scene to three or four peoples' point of views. Confusing, schizoid, and very, very N.D.
Poor:
-While My Sister Sleeps. Barbara Delinsky should stick to writing those thick paperback romances, you know, the kind with no blurb on the back cover, to make room for a shiny airbrushed portrait of herself? Those overinflated paperback romances, the shiny metallic script, like a fat woman pushed into a designer bathing suit two sizes too small. Please leave things like plot and theme to the professionals. I also read SITTENFELD'S second, The Man of My Dreams, or at least attempted to, but didn't include it on the list because I didn't finish and because it is terrible. Fancy terrible. With raisins.
Please stay tuned for April part the second.
What are you reading?
- True to Form, by Elizabeth Berg.
- While My Sister Sleeps, by Barbara Delinsky
- The Time-Traveler’s Wife (re-read) by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Way the Crow Flies, by Ann-Marie Macdonald
- The Patron Saint of Liars, by Ann Patchett
- We Were the Mulvaneys, (re-read) by Joyce Carol Oates
- The Ghost at the Table, by Suzanne Berne
- The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian.
Great
The Way the Crow Flies. I’ve been waiting to read this book, Macdonald’s second after Fall on Your Knees, which was awesome, for a long time. It didn’t disappoint. I felt like I lived in the characters’ world whilst reading it. I spent whole days in Cold War Canada on a little Air Force base with a dashing pilot father and Acadian mother. The book is terribly long, by layman’s standards, but Macdonald treats every sentence as though it were the only one. She is a master at her craft. The only problem with this book is that she hasn’t yet written another.
Fair:
-While Mulvaneys is always good, I think I’ve already re-read and reviewed it favorably this year so I will leave it there. TTW by Niffenegger is always a good read, but her characters seem a little like insufferable prats the more time you spend with them. Not good. You’re supposed to love the characters more each time you encounter them, I think. Elizabeth Berg is amazing but her stories are a bit like candy floss: Not very filling, but always delicious.
Middling:
-the Patchett book. I wanted to like it, ‘deed I did, and the plot was going going going somewhere and then it just stopped. As though she had reached a word limit. It might as well have been mid-sentence. Chris Bohjalian should really have stopped after Midwives. His latest book requires a serious leap of credulity, and isn’t well-written or interesting enough to justify the leap. He does this funky thing, where he writes in third person omniscent and jumps around in the same scene to three or four peoples' point of views. Confusing, schizoid, and very, very N.D.
Poor:
-While My Sister Sleeps. Barbara Delinsky should stick to writing those thick paperback romances, you know, the kind with no blurb on the back cover, to make room for a shiny airbrushed portrait of herself? Those overinflated paperback romances, the shiny metallic script, like a fat woman pushed into a designer bathing suit two sizes too small. Please leave things like plot and theme to the professionals. I also read SITTENFELD'S second, The Man of My Dreams, or at least attempted to, but didn't include it on the list because I didn't finish and because it is terrible. Fancy terrible. With raisins.
Please stay tuned for April part the second.
What are you reading?