nyc2cents

Total CLUNKER from the great Alexander McCall Smith

Reviewed: 03-28-25

Silly, boring, simple, boring, pedantic, boring.
What happened?!
Normally a very entertaining and sophisticated humour from A.M.S— this was just blah, blah. Finished it HOPING for a fun twist. Sadly, just more of the same.

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Should've been 2 or 3 different volumes in series

Reviewed: 02-09-25

First --to agree, the prose was excellent and sometimes superlative. There were passages and phrases I just wanted to memorize.
Now for the more serious commentary which is more critical. It is a book much better suited to be a short series. There are phases in each life, which the author recognizes and breaks up the book into date ranges. In the form of a single book, it just rambles and ridiculously, or as if was written for as a TV series, is constantly giving these Hollywood saccharine plot twists that diminish the pathos and sensibilities of the characters.

In the end, it is a 2-3 star because it is both lovely writing, good characters but farcical in its plot maneuvers --for example Evelyn & Dottie, both in their late 90s, "galavanting" around, completely lucid, completely healthy.... not impossible but unlikely. etc etc That being said, the "magical realism" of the parrot was hilarious.

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Cute if it’d been 5 min. Horrible for its full length

Reviewed: 01-01-25

So tedious, predictable and silly. Can’t believe it was written by Frederick Bachman, albeit some of his books are truly superb and some are mediocre. This is simply terrible.

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Wonderful view of family dynamics

Reviewed: 11-24-24

This is a very interesting view of both grief anger and complicated family dynamics. The last five minutes I a good update to bringing it into the current day and age and ways of looking at things

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1 person found this helpful

Boring and so many loose ends

Reviewed: 10-12-24

I hate to diss a book but I am tired of reading books that have 4-5 stars only to find they are mediocre at best.
This book has a few charming moments and even a couple touching moments but it is the story of a young neice whose father has died and whose mother goes to school to become a seamstress. There is not enough money for the daughter too, so she goes to live with her tremendously wealthy aunt and uncle and family.
I won’t go into the story but the nagging question from the start is why the aunt and uncle can’t help financially to the mother??!!
So on and so forth. Many other loose ends.
The saving grace of this book is a glimpse into the ability to communicate emotions in the quiet Japanese culture that avoids displays of emotion or direct conversation.

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1 person found this helpful

Important and informative history, and surprisingly easy read/listen despite subject matter

Reviewed: 09-01-24

Four stars for unveiling this very important aspect — women in and post Vietnam War—now that we feel comfortable analysing the war from so many angles. Bravo for writing a very popular style literature that actually simultaneously educates about aspects of history overlooked, ignored or denied.

Reminiscent of the movie, Hidden Figures— about the important role that women played at NASA.

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1 person found this helpful

Must remember it was published 1855

Reviewed: 08-20-24

Given the era, the book is illuminating of the clash coming upon the Aristocracy from the growing Industrial Revolution’s class upheaval.
So for that reason I was glad to have read this book.

Otherwise the characters are two dimensional — albeit some do “grow” — but the inability to be directly human is lost in the stilted “culture “- which rings untrue.
And the narrator reads with a saccharine tone. The main character Margaret is thoroughly unlikeable until 75% through the book— and meant to be portrayed as an independent thinker and “feminist “ she is simply boring, simple and myopic. How she could even enjoy her manipulative, selfish, narcissistic cousin Edith highlights Margaret’s inability to even be honest with herself.

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Best yet

Reviewed: 08-16-24

Great characters and by now, we are all intrigued and rooting for the unlikely pairing of Hawthorne & Anthony. Each of these two is so thoroughly fixed in a personality and way of behaving that is antithetical to the other and yet, there is a certain "je ne sais quoi" between them!

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1 person found this helpful

Wonderful British humour— Dectective story

Reviewed: 08-13-24

Well written and while solving the murder(s) is a driving force for the plot, it is the colourful and unlikely pairing of the two main characters that is key to the series’ charm.

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Heartfelt at times, very repetitive, too long

Reviewed: 07-28-24

An excellent plot and wonderful writing style. The characters started off very real but as the book moved along with life’s surprises and tragedies, each character calcified—becoming very two dimensional to the point of being highly unlikeable. It was exhausting by the end. Easily 20% should have been edited out.

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