Maura Casey

Great story but too much detail

Revisado: 02-24-25

I love detail in a story, but in this book it’s as if the author said, “I did my research and by God I will use every bit of it.” Do we really need to know every single item loaded onto the ship? The background of every village? The ancestry of the men? It interferes with the story.

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Fascinating and frustrating

Revisado: 01-17-25

Incredibly creative plot about women in a family, including the narrator, June, who are time travelers, with all the fraught choices and emotions involved. Yet there was too much babbling about emotions by the narrator- I felt like. “Enough, already,” get on with the plot. More action. I didn’t need to know that the narrator was scared/horrified/panicked. It just got tiring and made the book sag in the middle.

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The structure hobbled the story

Revisado: 01-07-25

The central character is the house. OK, I get it. So this book tells the stories of the characters who inhabit the house over centuries. It feels like braided short stories - every chapter introduces different characters, but as soon as you get interested, the chapter ends and a whole new set of characters enters the stage. In between chapters are ballads, poems, etc. which seemed random and completely stopped the forward progress of the book. It got really irritating. I did finish the book, though, and I noticed at the end a previous character was introduced but by that time there had been so many I couldn't place who she was. The stories weren't the problem, the structure is.

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It just went on and on

Revisado: 06-25-24

A description of family life during a vacation week, except that the narrator went on and on about her unfettered rage, her menopause symptoms in the most graphic sense, and various conditions of her vagina throughout the book. Hell, I went thru menopause too, and I just felt like telling the narrator to get over it. The plot was just ok. Not that great.

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A rollicking good yarn!

Revisado: 06-01-23

Holy crap, what a fun read, mixing suspense, the history of settlement on the Great Plains, a dragon like creature, mythology, women helping women, racism against blacks and Chinese and sweet revenge - even redemption. Hated for it to end!

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Michener needed an editor

Revisado: 08-25-22

He used every last bit of research he did for his books. Ridiculous. We don’t need to know how to make sausage from the slaughter to putting it in a pan. Too much information.

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Not not not about flying!!

Revisado: 10-15-21

I got this book based on the sample and knew Beryl Markham to be a famous aviatrix. So I downloaded the book. But after the first few pages of the book and a few pages at the end, there is next to nothing about flying. Think: Africa, love affairs, and horses. Lots and lots of horses. Unfortunately I don’t give a damn about horses. I didn’t want to read 58 chapters of a book about a woman pilot that said nothing about flying. Don’t get me wrong. The author is an exquisite writer, a tremendous talent. But the sample I listened to of this book before I downloaded it was a bait and switch.

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Good but depressing

Revisado: 09-24-21

From what I gleaned from the Internet, Mortensen, who is a big fat liar, has continued to laugh all the way to the bank. This short book needed an afterword badly.

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Sexist and in need of editing

Revisado: 08-04-21

This is a virtually male only, white only view of the years since the Cold War. He spends a chapter on Betty Friedan and other women’s movement but the other 17 chapters mention mostly just two - Simone de Bouvier and Susan Sontag. Really? Are they the only two worth mentioning in 50 years? Blacks are limited to fewer than five, among them James Baldwin. Really? We are treated to an avalanche of detail, some impressive but others unnecessary to making his point - thus, the need of an editor. I’m sorry I spent so much time easing through this book.

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A great, entertaining listen

Revisado: 06-04-21

This was a great story. The author created a world that is totally original with an unpredictable plot. I loved it!

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas