Kenna

Excellent, but maybe not as an audio book?

Revisado: 12-03-22

Alright, audio is not the best format for an epistolary novel, so the first few chapters will drive you nuts. but when you get used to it, the story really develops. And the epistolary format really allows the reader to experience each character's development and internal voice meaningfully. I will warn: this is not an audio book to listen to while you're doing other things. In order to keep track of each message, you really have to be focused on the book. The voice work is fantastic though, and that helps with the adaptation of the novel's format.

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Read this now.

Revisado: 08-16-22

I have never felt so seen or understood by a novel. I've been reading Lorrie Moore for the past few days, and this is the last book in her bibliography for me. I wish I'd read it first.

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Why?

Revisado: 08-14-22

Look, I try not to be a snob about books, which is hard as an English professor. But why in the hell is it that every book written about a librarian or a bookseller is written by a person who seems to understand neither profession? Cue to future readers: if a book describes itself as a "love letter to readers" or a "love letter to books" or some nonsense like that, it's going to be weak in narrative and dialogue. Go read something good that actually accomplishes some kind of comment on the nature of humanity. This is a beach read masquerading as literary fiction and I'm mad at myself for finishing it. I could have been listening to a Lorrie Moore collection.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Misleading reviews, this is fantastic

Revisado: 05-19-21

The first Lily King novel I read was Writers and Lovers, and I enjoyed it enough to read Father of the Rain. Many of the reviews here talk about this novel being about "deplorable" and "evil" people who do awful things. But I'm not convinced those reviewers finished the novel. The father is a terrible alcoholic bigot, yes, but that's sort of the point. King captures a particular brand of WASPy alcoholism and racism that usually exists behind closed French doors. and she captures the desperation that so many daughters feel (myself included) to gain their fathers' approval, the way some children feel compelled to sacrifice their own values and their own accomplishments so they can care for their parents. It's a beautiful story.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Valente needs an editor, not a thesaurus.

Revisado: 12-23-20

I realize she's trying to catch a linguistic pattern common in Golden Age Hollywood, but it's so exaggerated - every character is overly descriptive and unable to use anything but overwrought, complex-compound sentences - that the writing sounds like a fangirl affectation. I have read some of her other work, and the concept for this novel is definitely interesting, but Valente is suffering for want of a line editor. There is a kind of gospel in the effective short sentence. Every good writer knows that.

The performance is alright, I suppose? But it is nearly impossible to discern when our POV has shifted (this is partially because, as I said, every character is written in the same way). If you're going to subject yourself to this, read rather than listen. Otherwise, you'll spend half your day rewinding to figure out who's talking and whether we're in a scene or a diary entry or a list of things.

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