Odd book. A story about a North Korean spy(?) written by an American. The writing style
is typical of modern 'lit-er-a-choor' and is a little choppy and non-time linear. I read
a few reviews on this book, and it seems there is a theme of propaganda and politics
that is supposed to be threaded thru the story. I might have missed the moral for the
trees, to mix a metaphor.
Good book. It is a story about a young boy who is in a explosion and latches on to
famous painting (of a goldfinch) as his personal talisman. It follows the boy thru many
adventures and tragedies. I liked the book for its clean writing style and plot twists.
If you liked "Cutting for Stone", you will like this one. I have been a little out of order
in these last few books. But I think this one stands out from the current trend of
spacey, feeley books where narrative and character take second place to style.
A story about excaped slaves, framed by the adventures of one woman, Cora.
Here is the blurb about the book on the Pulizer site, "a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines
the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America."
Hmmm. Lit-er-a-choor. But it was actually better than the snippets and other comentary
would make you think. (I would have been slayed in my creative writing class for writing the
sentence above. I count 3 problems with it. Or maybe we are just calling that dynamic
tension these days. Ha ha.)
A light, gay comedy. This is a story of a middle aged, gay man who takes a whirlwind
global trip to escape the wedding of his ex. The writing was good, but the book overall was
not exceptional. The book dealt with the gay life sytle in a much more normal way than many
previous books, and for that it probably deserves the award. But it is not top-20 material.
