R itibaren Kfar Giladi, İsrail
Belki son zamanlarda seçtiğim kitaplar, ama hepsi arasında ortak bir konu olduğunu fark ediyorum: tutarsız derecede zayıf ana karakterler. Bu benim ikinci David Nicholls'in kitabı. Ve her iki hikayesinde de, ana karakter (erkek) sonunda ona büyük ölçüde zarar veren gölgeli şeyler yapar ... görünüşte, güvensizlikleri tarafından gölgeli şeyler. Eğer kahramanı sevmediğiniz bir kitap okumak zor ... Tom Perrotta değilseniz, çünkü kitaplarında nadiren sevdiğiniz bir karakter var. Ve bu sadece onun tarzı ve onu seviyorum. Ama bu farklı; Stephen'ı (kahramanı) sevdiğimi sanıyorum ve yaptığı şeylerde bir gerekçe varmış gibi hissediyorum. Kitabın, Stephen'ın garipliğinin beni kıvırdığı birçok bölümü var; ama kıvrandığım için yazık kartımın masaya yatırıldığı anlamına gelmiyor. Gerçekten kaybeden olmayan bir karakterin perspektifinden yazmasını istiyorum ...! Bu da Stephen'ın ani gruff'unu, sona doğru kindar tavırları inandırıcı değil. Ayrıca, başka bir yakınma: "On Starter", önceki kitabı, "Understudy" nin sonu gibi gerçek bir sonuç yoktu. Yazarın ne yapmak istediğini anlamak için bir haritaya ihtiyacım yok, ama belki de biraz yön? Yazma stilini gerçekten seviyorum - aynı zamanda zeki ve acımasız. Arsa iyiydi. Diğer karakterlerin arka planları iyiydi. Bence sadece daha fazla menzile ihtiyacı var ve harika olacak. Yani, iki yıldız.
It took me awhile to get into this. I was originally turned off right away when I opened the book and saw the "cast of characters" from the year Abilene was in Manifest as well as the people mentioned in the parts of the book that flash back to 1918. I usually hate fiction that is so complicated it requires character lists, or maps, or indexes, or dictionaries, etc. I thought the story was very touching though. I cried at the end. I like the newspaper articles and ads worked into the story. I'd like to use a book like this someday with a class and tie it into a history unit. You can do a lot with this book. Research using old newspapers from your hometown or oral history projects...
This is one of those books that I almost didn’t read. I made the mistake of reading a couple reviews that were less than great and decided that maybe it wasn’t worth the read. I really need to stop doing that. Somebody please remind me to stop doing that! After having a few people I trusted tell me I should read it, I decided to give it a try. Boy am I glad that I did. Hush, Hush is the first angel story I’ve read, and I now have a new paranormal love. Nora is a great female lead. She is smart, strong and her own person. She calls her life before she met Patch “normal” but it really wasn’t. She barely saw her mother, she had lost her father violently and she was still recovering. Her feelings and confusion over Patch just added to the mix. Patch was the perfect mysterious hero/bad guy. Through most of the story you are as lost as Nora when it comes to Patch’s intentions. The only aspect of the story I didn’t like was Nora’s friendship with Vee. I guess opposites attract even as far as friendships go, but I just found Vee annoying and Nora too forgiving. Just my opinion. I love the concept of fallen angels that Becca has written. Who wouldn’t want a guardian angel of their very own? Patch’s fall also makes him more human, vulnerable and lovable. Every good guy has to have a bad streak right? I can’t wait to read Crescendo and lucky me won a copy this weekend! Actually I won Hush, Hush and Crescendo so I get to give one of my copies away so someone else can get lost in Nora and Patch’s story.
A novel written (almost) entirely in dialogue, like A Closed Book or Deception, both written (almost) entirely in dialogue. This removes any authorial presence from the book, and as Barthesian and savvy as this is, the technique falls flat when explanations are needed for what can't be conveyed in dialogue. This novel concerns an old man, who may or may not be an Argentinian gangster, and his hired companion, who may or may not be a failed academic, who tell stories to one another, which may or may not be lies, but mostly (sometimes) are. That's as lucid as this novel gets, and the mystery isn't really very interesting, nor is it resolved very well: Puig chooses to break the form by tacking on a series of explanatory letters afterwards, wimping out a little and leaving the reader even more bemused. Having said that, the novel is rather good fun, by turns witty and dark and interesting. (I admit to having lost the thread halfway through and soldiering on. If someone would like to patronise me and explain things I really don't mind).