Lucy

Important

Reviewed: 08-11-24

This is such an important book for women, for the faithful and faithless, for all of us who grew up near evangelicals and fundies of all stripes and spots, and for this moment in American history. Read it.

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Fantastic!! Worth the time!

Reviewed: 11-20-15

Hot damn, what an ending !! I love this even more than I loved "Life After Life". I'm in for anything else she writes. . . ever.

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This Drags

Reviewed: 10-15-15

I heard great things about this before listening. I expected salaciousness, scandals and sacrilege. What I got was an overly long reading of observational notes. How it's possible to make a topic like this dull is beyond me but this accomplished it.

As always though Simon Vance is sublime.

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3 people found this helpful

A must listen

Reviewed: 09-05-15

This was a wonderful book. It's smart, incisive, and funny. A real must read for a better understanding of the world we live in. It would also be great paired with Missoula.

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3 people found this helpful

Interesting but flawed

Reviewed: 07-23-15

This was a really interesting examination of race-relations, culture, privilege, sexuality, and education. The premise was really solid and the some of the themes were examined well. At times though it felt as though this book was trying to hard to make it's point. It's tangets and attempts at meta analysis worked against it's overall impact. So good but not great.

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2 people found this helpful

Perfect Narrator, Good Book

Reviewed: 07-15-15

I loved this. I unapologetically loved it. I've given it one read through and reserve the right to adjust opinions and thoughts after several re-reads, but as it stands now I loved it.

The media has been all a flutter about the fact that in this version Atticus is a racist. True he is -- that does not make this a bad book. There are plenty of great books with problematic characters. Not to mention the fact that this was the first draft and Harper Lee clearly decided to go in a different direction in the final TKAM. What makes this book great is not Atticus, not even a little bit. What makes this one great is Scout.

GSAW's Scout is a bad ass, and quite possibly my literary doppelganger, or at the very least my new literary friend crush. Grown-up Scout is ferociously independent, idealistic and a wonderful example of feminism (especially given when this was written). She is the color- blind hero to GSAW that Atticus was to TKAM. She is ferocious about it too. The scene when she calls Atticus to the carpet is tense. In some ways the underlying themes about racism that Lee achieved so beautifully in TKAM are still here, in a more raw state but still here. The difference is that they are expressed by Scout rather than to her through Atticus.

The beauty of this one is in the way it handles growing up, and in the way it addresses very real life. It beautifully, masterfully handles the heartache of coming into one's own and the pain of realizing that your parents and childhood may be deeply flawed; that you may have missed things as a child that you don't want to see as an adult. The way we deal literally and figuratively with the concept of not being able to go home again.

I would love to design and teach and/or sit in on a university course examining these two books side by side. I think there are many interesting criticisms to be leveled at both. I'd love to have a discussion about what it says about our expectations of main characters that for the story to get published the powerful advocate for racial-blindness and equality had to be switched from a woman to a man? Also, what does it say that we worship the spotless character of Atticus Finch in TKAM when in reality this version is probably more nuanced and accurate?

The least interesting thing about this book is that Atticus is *surprise* flawed. Even if we ignored that this is in fact the first draft of what would become TKAM and pretend that it is actually the sequel, Atticus is still a great man in TKAM. If this were really the sequel do his actions in TKAM, both in terms of the trial and in raising this version of Scout, become less meaningful of valid because he is more racist in this book? Or,is it perhaps interesting to consider that in the real world it may be possible, not preferable, but possible to be both? Is it not possible that Atticus is a great father, a judicious lawyer, and also a racist? This is a great book in its own right and will make for some fascinating discussions in years to come.

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1 person found this helpful

Good, but. . .

Reviewed: 07-14-15

Overall, this is a solid and well written book. Bleak, but solid.

The first chapter is problematic, and I'm not sure if it's a translation issue or an author issue, but words like "fagged out" feel jarring and wholly out of place. It's also hard to follow until the trip to the village. Give it a chapter or two.

Which raises my second issue with the book. There was a weird, creepy sexual undertone that was inconsistent but kept sneaking in every so often. I say weird and creepy because it didn't seem to fit in the larger context of the book. It couldn't decide what kind of tone it wanted to be. It alternated between homoerotic and homophobic with an healthy underlying dose of implied pedophilia thrown in for good measure.

Don't get me wrong all of those have an arguably valid place in literature, but they didn't fit here --at all. They did absolutely nothing to add to an otherwise solid story nor were they relevant to character development. Rather they felt like the author was either trying to personally work through something, or added in a bit of sexually socking ambiguity because -- you know-- literary fiction is more literary that way.

So 4 but with a huge star-sucking caveat.

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Faulty recording, decent story

Reviewed: 07-07-15

This was entertaining, but fell a bit short on the heels of "Death with Interruptions" (which was masterful). Also there are glitches in the recording where the audio is spliced strangely and you miss a chunk. I am planning to return it as a faulty recording although story wise I'd say give it a go.

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Way too much left undone - returning it.

Reviewed: 06-26-15

*minor spoilers* I picked this up because of all the buzz recently, but was really rather disappointed. There were parts that were quite promising, and it was an interesting premise, but I rather felt like it was unfinished (and I don't just mean the giant 'where the hell is the rest' cliff hanger). There was quite a bit left hanging or unexplained: the carpet and the teacher, the significance of the falcon, the insignias, the sort of attempt at magical realism but not, the curse. And don't even get me started on the quality of the dialog. I'd love to believe that the unfinished-ness was an intentional play to recreate the nightly story telling and the dawn, but I don't think there was a strong enough nod to the original (She told what 2 stories in this?) to make that work. However if it was an intentional parallel than kudos to the author for the meta-nod.

This book seems to be trying to capitalize on the recent trend in things like movies of splitting sequels/final installments into as many money grabbing parts as possible. The problem here is that this is a first book and doesn't have the already weighted fan base or the internal back story to support it.

Overall love the idea but am ultimately not impressed with the execution. I'll be returning this one.

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4 people found this helpful

Not as smart as the title

Reviewed: 02-27-15

I'm not going to lie, I bought this book because of the title -- what a fantastic title, right? Also, becuase in trying to read more books in translation this year.

I was disappointed. It's a creative story idea and has brief pockets of interesting, but it's ultimately forgettable. It's trying too hard to be clever and a bit surreal to do either properly.

More positively the narrator was great and the name jokes played well in audio.

Overall don't waste your time. The title is the best bit.

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1 person found this helpful