Another "trying to be different" book. I appreciated the rock-n-roll vibe
of the book, but the narrative was choppy. I had a heck of a time keeping the
characters straight. This book is like punk rock, I appreciate the energy and
enthusiasm, but is it good music?
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, feely books where narrative and character take second place to style.
This is set during WWII. It jumps between a young, blind French girl and a
young German soldier. Like "A Bell for Adano", this is a bit of a tragedy, but
is a well told story. I was prepared to be annoyed early in the book as Doerr
jumps between geography and time in short, 1 to 2 page vignettes. It seems like
as the book progresses, he gave up on the shtick, and told the story in a straightforward
forward manner. Just as you get interested, the chapters get longer. I suspect even
authors are not immune to the velocity of a good story.
A vietnam war book by an actual Asian. A compelling story with little of the
recent fad of jump cuts and kitchy schtick. Beware, this book is NSFW that is
quite a lot of violence and tragedy. Definitely would be an R rated movie.
I was recently in Laos, so could appreciate the descriptions of the highlands
between Laos and Vietnam.
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.
