Jay

Spunky Lady

Revisado: 05-28-24

I love this Victorian witty tale. Great dialogue. Love the reader. Bring on book two!

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Cat and Mouse Sexual Steam the whole entire book

Revisado: 11-02-23

I returned this book.
I found the writing so adolescent (although the first person persona is in his twenties). So many " didn't look below the waist" then "I may have glimpsed" that I wanted to scream.
I listen to books while cycling and this one struck me as painful to listen to. I gave it way too long to correct its footing and it failed until I had to finally call "Uncle"!
I can't fault the narrator, he performed well considering what was written.
I think this is a YA book, heavy on the Y.

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The Non-Florida Accent is Off-Putting

Revisado: 12-04-22

To me there are two major flaws in this audio book. One involves the "audio" part and one involves the written part.
However, I did listened to the entire book. That was easy because it's written in a "vocal epistolary" form (I made that up, I think). In other words, it's written as a series of interviews.

I like the major premise (Theme Park Goes Amok) and I think it was fleshed out pretty well. Also, a major sub-theme of "To err is human to really screw up takes a computer" comes through, although I saw that race as a virtual tie. In these days of gratuitous violence and mass murders, I think the ending really stretches my suspension of disbelief. It's almost like it was written to be a mini-series or a movie. I also found that the book uncannily presages Hurricane Ian (September 2022) with the unpredicted, terrible and persisting flooding.

I have two overarching issues:
1. (Audio) Floridians, and especially (somewhat) central Floridians DO NOT have a Georgian/Alabaman accent. I live and taught school in Central Florida. One person in one hundred have that accent. People near Georgian (say, Jacksonville) and people near Alabama (say, Pensacola) are more likely to have that Southern drawl. Most people in Florida have only been here for one generation.
2. (Written) Too many of the characters seemed like somewhat stupid and definitely immature partiers. There isn't a variety of personality types to match the variety of people interviewed. The people with any brains are villains, or, at best, cynical ego maniacs.

The theme-park-going-amok sub-genre is a rich tapestry to create on. This story, in my final analysis, is not so bad.

(I think this book is ok for YA's from a sexual standpoint, but not ok from a violence standpoint. I personally would have tipped the balance the other way. Also, the crowd is not a diverse crowd, no matter how you define diverse. (Exception: a few females are in leadership roles.)

Florida's state song "Old Folks At Home" was written my a person who never set foot in the state. I feel like that is also true of the author of this novel.

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Top Drawer, Dawling, Top Drawer

Revisado: 12-27-20

The passage of time never faded Auntie Mame or this book. Read it now. What have you got to lose but your humdrum existence!

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A Lot of Heart, Well-performed, A lot to learn

Revisado: 04-17-20

Wow, I learned a lot about intersexuality!

The format of the writer is telling different characters perspectives chapter by chapter (I assume it's a chapter granularity).
By having different voices for each was wonderful.
I think this would make a great book for any mature 14 year old teen and up.

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The reader/author is a terrible reader

Revisado: 02-24-20

I'm sorry to say this but I couldn't stand more than a half hour of this book. He is a terrible reader. The book (I got through 1/3 of it) seemed to be about Ishmael Reed and all the names he could drop in as few sentences as possible, except Malcolm X, who seemed to be only mentioned in passing.

Maybe Mr. Reed is a good writer, but someone else should have narrated this!

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I'd Rather Wonder What Happened Than Read Sequel

Revisado: 11-04-19

No. I should have known when I read Aciman's oeuvre and felt that Call Me By Your Name was his only book firing on all cylinders.
It's personal, yeah, I know that. Few books touched me like Call Me By Your Name. This book, Find Me: lots of touching but I wasn't involved.
The book is like a sexually-fluid ramp among the best and brightest and most privileged. Do I identify with any of them? Nope. I had trouble identifying a personality difference or a sexual behavior difference between Oliver, Elio, and Elio's dad!
There was almost a juicy mystery...alas, it crashed and burned.
Mr. Aciman can turn a phrase, create an aphorism, and, portray the intricacies of close human interactions. Thank you for not talking down to your readers.

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Lovely, passionate epistolary novel...but

Revisado: 07-09-19

I'm a sucker for happy stories. I'm a sucker for weird gay kids because I was one.
This story can be compared to Call Me By Your Name in the emotional heat that it produces. The pivoting on Walt Whitman renewed my interest in the poet.

Here's the "but"
The quiet angry abused older writer (Curly?) metamorphised too rapidly, too completely, too transformatively (if that's not redundant). While still be regularly abused he took on superhero status. And what person writes a letter to the person they had sex with describing (blow by blow, figuratively speaking only) what happened. It's a contorted use of the epistolary style to provide narrative. And what teacher gives this kind of assignment that has no adult review to help facilitate growth? And what assertive, openly gay, intelligent, precociously insightful 10th grader allows himself to be mercilessly bullied without getting the support of his supportive dad, his teachers and other adults in the environment? This takes place in 2016. I was a teacher in high school in Florida prior to this time (I've since retired). This would not have gone unnoticed by the professional staff in Florida, let alone urban Minneapolis.

Yes, I did suspend belief. Yes, I would read other books she wrote.

To the person who wrote that he can't understand women and straight men writing gay literature, I've asked myself the same question so I thought about it. I'm not sure that's not a form of homophobia, For example Yaoi is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. Writers aren't always writing novels that are cloaked autobiographies or we'd have few horror or mass murder novels.

This book was a journey or two journeys for two complex, loner youths. I cried and I was in the characters' corners cheering them on. OK, I just changed my score on the story from 3 to 4.

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The Book Goes On Forever and Gets Nowhere

Revisado: 07-05-19

What I liked about THOLF: I like the narrator and I like first person narrative.

What I didn't like about THOLF: The story does not develop characters that I can glum onto, except maybe the neighbor kid.
The development of the elixir of life falls short of being vaguely interesting. The history of alchemy is fascinating. How did the author manage not to capitalize on it?
The juggling of three different time periods felt haphazard and often confusing. And I'm comfortable with this literary device.
The sex was...well, really there wasn't any to write about.

Did I say the narrator was good? Well, Maxwell Glick single-handedly kept me from returning this book.

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It's good but it ain't Call Me By Your Name(!)

Revisado: 07-23-18

Expecting the delicate splendor of Call Me By Your Name, I was taken aback at not only the narrator of the audiobook, but the story itself. But as things progressed I got it. It was different book - dah - and I enjoyed it. And it was good if not unbelievably unbelievable is so many ways.

There is the main character, who seems like he's 13 going on 22 who is really 27 (or so) and a character bigger than life who seems like a Titan who never seems to have any redeemable traits (well, hardly any) except he can dominate a room.

Oh well, I love the author's erudite fiction (not at Eco's level, mind you -- but more intimate). I will continue to work through his oeuvre.

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