Mary C

Awful narration

Revisado: 02-21-20

I was disappointed by this book. Fitzgerald was only 22 when he wrote it and although there are some wonderful sentences, his youth shows through. The main character is an egotistical, entitiled, privileged kid who gradually grows up but retains an unappealing egocentricity. The narration is often snarky and the efforts to portray a woman's voice are cringe inducing and distracting. The narrator sometimes races through the language making it difficult to savor.

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Perfect stories from a depressed alcoholic

Revisado: 01-07-19

These stories reflect the bleak, often limited lives of single women and housewives. The men are almost all rogues with no concern for the women in their lives. There's little of Parker's noted humor and wit unless you consider tragic irony to be wit. It's only 3 hours so not great value for the money.

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Tragic story all Americans should know

Revisado: 12-31-18

Overall this was very good except for the first narrator, Ann Marie Lee. Her narration was distractingly stilted. The 2 male narrators were excellent

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Good book hurt by the narrator

Revisado: 02-06-17

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would not recommend this book unless someone has a particular interest in early American life. It conveys well the discrimination faced by Native Americans and limited opportunities for women educationally and in control over their lives, but I didn't find the story particularly engaging.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I'd make the story a little less formulaic and predictable.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator took pains to enunciate every consonant of every word to the point that it became distracting and annoying. I had no problem with the language being of another era but the pronunciation did not come across as authentic, just stilted.

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Medium Raw not quite as "Meaty" as previous books

Revisado: 11-30-10

While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was not as packed with great stories and insider insights as his previous books. The beginning was slow but things picked up as it went along. He may be running out of juicy material and is therefore stretching what he's got to fill more space. It's worth getting the book, however, for his description of the world of St. Barts alone. Hilarious and spot on. It's especially worth reading for anyone considering becoming a chef.

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History 101

Revisado: 03-27-08

Throughout this book I could not get away from the feeling that the author's sole objective was to write about the history of the Armenian genocide in Turkey. The story was a vehicle for her history lesson and she manipulated it to enable the characters to give political speeches. The narrative stops dead with each one of these. She deals well, however, with the longing and search for identity of people from mixed cultures and the suffocating intimacy of these Middle Eastern families. The most interesting part for me was the depiction of how family experiences and retold history can shape younger generations' attitudes and beliefs in the same way that nations can manipulate access to information to do the same thing. The attachment to victimhood as part of a national, cultural identity, even when no longer justified, was an interesting aspect. I found many of the characters implausable, unappealing, and/or irritating. The second half of the book was far more engaging than the beginning as she got more focused on the narrative.

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