Shatterbox

Meh

Revisado: 06-05-24

Most of the stories were extremely repetitive in terms of plot. A few stood out, but it was hard to get through this book overall because of the repetition.

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Interesting anecdotes

Revisado: 05-12-24

This is a great audiobook because it is not complex enough to require close attention but is interesting enough to keep you listening.

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Terrible book by self-important, forgotten author

Revisado: 03-03-24

I read this book the first time more than 20 years ago when I thought I wanted to be a memoirist. I thought it was vain and delusional then, and it's comically bad now.

A relic of mid-century clubby, white publishing, and almost entirely forgotten now, Sarton gives a bravura performance of name-dropping, self-delusion about her significance as an "artist", and complaining that her fans -- women artists and closeted gay boys -- who won't leave her alone. This gets in the way of occasionally lovely observations about the bitter blessings of being alone -- even though she's not alone for more than a few hours for this entire year of "solitude"!

Students of male and female authors still in the canon might find it mildly interesting because she slept with a lot of them, apparently. Otherwise, this should be a hard pass.

The narrator's performance was quite good, though.

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Worst narrator ever

Revisado: 12-03-23

The male vocalizations were pinched and artificial, so much so that it was irritating, listening to the narration. And the Russian accent was execrable. Don’t you vet these people? Honestly, I want my money back. Listening to this narrator made me angry the entire time.

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Massively overrated

Revisado: 05-02-23

A gimmicky pastiche. I have no idea how he has gotten away with dining out on this novel for basically his entire career. If it weren’t for fatwa fame, Rushdie would be a mid-list author at best. The narrator had no business even attempting American accents. Execrable overall.

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Insufferable. I couldn’t even finish it.

Revisado: 12-07-22

It started choppy and happy, but I gave it a little while to become engaging either with its use of language, or with the plot. Sadly disappointed in both respects. By about a quarter of the way in, I called it quits.

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Moralizing and repetitive

Revisado: 10-31-22

You could make a drinking game out of the number of times he says diabetes.

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Narrator detracts from overall experience

Revisado: 07-09-22

The stories are well written and relatable. The problem is the narrator does not know how to create male characters with her voice and overenunciates, which only makes it worse and takes you out of the story.

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