P. Giorgio

The immigrant dtory

Reviewed: 12-19-24

Loved it at first but the profanity was excessive and not funny. The profanity that made me close the book was the boy's mother telling them about sex and the boys describing it in very ridiculous terms. I really did like the beginning of the story. I like cultural stories and this is one, but the language was off-putting to me. I'm not a prude, I just don't think it needed to be there and in the same part of the story is the mother who is deaf.

I know the author intended it to juxtapose Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," but this has no redeeming value as far as I read -- which is only to chapter 3 I'm finished though.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and I raised my kids with open conversations about EVERYTHING. If they giggled and laughed, it was not in my face. It's too bad, too. I think it might be an interesting read.

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Ok for 1968

Reviewed: 11-29-24

The story was well paced and interesting. I liked the way the case built up against the perp. I hated the interrogation scenes, they did nothing to promote proving or disproving a subject's innocence.

I expected to feel the detectives' relief at solving the crime, but the ending was bland. None of the characters brought me into the story.

Roseaanna herself was interesting. I would have appreciated more about her and what drove her behaviors. The big reveal about the killer's motives was also flat, somewhat predictable, but generated in me neither pity nor rage at the SOB. He was neither a dympathetc nor hated character.

The person who did the narration sounded like an AI voice, but it can't have been, I don't believe, since Audible dates its release as 2008. The story, of course is much older, like 1968. However the audio was produced, it was not an interesting or interested tone. Like hearing a police "murder book" being read into a tape recorder. Very unemotional, unaffected, never surprised and never intense as the police attempted to get thru the grizzley details.

I don't mind having ted it, but I would not recommend it to anyone I know.

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Wonderful telling of a tragedy

Reviewed: 11-11-24

The pace was perfect. Characters well-defined, believable. The realistic events and fall out felt genuine, but sad.

Yes, it's a lot of detailed misery of a dysfunctional family. Yes, the time shifts from one decade to another. Yes, there are some tiresome passages.

However, between the lines of the obvious, what is implied but not stated, is the kernel of this wonderful story. The biracial issue controls the entire story, stated clearly and often. The ineffectual father is who he is because he was bruised by his ethnic identity and he passed down his pain. He thought he knew best how to save his children from the same prejudice. Alas, his children were just like he was. Cowed, afraid, ashamed, and reluctant. Their mother was a disappointment to her mother. Her mother was also a lost soul. Her father left home, and Marilyn was raised by her striving, disappointed mother. In turn, Marilyn, James' wife and mother to the three children in this book, followed her mother's recipes for disaster by insisting that her daughter, Marilyn be something she could never be. She even brought the dreaded Betty Crocker from her mother's home to her home. All these losses and social alienation went from generation to generation, intentionally promulgated by each generation of parenting.

I found the father's actions, James's, perfectly logical regarding Louisa Chen. James could not undo his offspring's DNA or appearance, and could not reconcile society's proclamations of their status. But with Louisa Chen, he entertained a "do-over" -- a possible future reversal.

The most interesting aspect of the text and each child's subsequent actions is the pecking order of the kids to their parents. Lydia's blue eyes apparently endeared her to her brown-eyed father; the other children also had brown eyes. Lydia was capable of scholarship, but as a pariah in her all-white community, she would never have the social support to reach for academic success. The son, Nath, was expected to go to Harvard like his father, but he wanted to study the cosmos and would have preferred MIT.

All these things are nothing compared to what each child wanted most... a family who accepted them for who they were. Lydia was the preferred child, Nath and Hannah were simply extras on Lydia's stage, forgotten children; so unusual that the girl (Lydia) took precedence over the boy (Nath).

The beauty of this text is the actual text itself. Sentences flow like honey from suggestion to action. Similies abound, the imagery is impeccable and the inevitability is profound.

There is a point quite near the end, where it felt like something very big was about to be exposed, but Ms. Ng did not drop in any surprises. The revelations were parceled out in the right time and in the right amounts, so that when something becomes known to the reader, we already expected it. This last little red herring had the potential to be an unexpected explosion that would wreck the continuum, but it did not. This brief, almost alarming potential turn extinguished itself in an unimportant detail, but lets us, as readers know that it's the little stuff, the tiniest of observations, a slip of the tongue, a misperceived gesture that make the interpretation of people's actions (in life and fiction) unpredictable.

It bothered me that so many people panned this wonderful book. It is a rich, multilayered, multigenerational story that as in life, we don't rely only on actions to be affected and changed.

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lack of a real story. and too much dialogue between people and less action than usual.

Reviewed: 10-28-24

I'm an avid Reacher fan. Ths is the worst I have ever heard. It sounds like somebody thinking out loud about a story they might write some day.

There's so little action, thus I must assume that Reacher is in retirement. if this is the level of output that will continue, I'm completely done. Some of the previous ones haven't been great but they were tolerable. This stinks. I couldn't care less about any of the characters. Reacher did not even act like Reacher. It is an incomplete book, if you compare it to real Reacher stories. There was no excitement, ther was no mystery, There was no anticipation. The little sexual innuendo was gratuitous, added for no reason. This is a PG, not R. No lust, no satisfaction. We are simply to understand two people shared a bed.

The female characters are also gratuitous. Stop the political correctness. It's ok for a story to be only about men, for sex to be urgent and wanton. I don't recall Reacher's taking a shower after his tryst, which is not like him.

I'm so disappointed, I will probably listen to the old ones again before I'll listen to anything new. I'm so sorry to have to say this it's my loss.

Too many characters, nobody identified by he said, she said, but it didn't matter. it was all for nothing. I statyed to the end because I hoped JR would close with a proper street fight, which typically starts these stories, broken arm and a headache be damned. Yes, the broken arm came from an earlier interaction, but was a textbook, boring self-defense event. I miss those former intense street fights that establish the players, the reasons, and what's at stake immediately.

Too bad.

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Strong characters and a steady build up to the inevitable.

Reviewed: 10-03-24

An epic journey of several souls looking always for "more." Though some prevail and others do not, this is a tragedy and a lesson for even today. Unlikely,, but EVERY teenager (boys snd girls) should be assigned either Sister Carrie or (even better) Drieser's "An American Tragedy."

Written generations ago, the insights are still valid.

It's about longing, discrimination based on gender and station in life (haves and have-nots), poverty, wealth hopelesness , and losing hope, and how sexy romance fizzle under the pressure of financial straits.

It's about striving and idling, the will to excel. Most important it is about relationships between men and women, employers and workers, and the hierarchy which acquisition determines.

For young snd old, a reminder to mind your behaviors and who witnesses one's faults abd failures.

Both are very long, American Tragedy is the longer, but the more entertaining.

Young people who think their parents don't get today's culture, After reading one of these books, we are teminded that some things about human beings NEVER CHANGE.

There are sre issues with the writing... it's a bit heavy handed. Drieser does not "charge" the errant women with their bad deeds which drive men to do very bad things in order to possess them.

I am not not sure I could read the book in my hands, making Audible perfect for these tomes. I also got the Kindle editions. Wonderful turns of phrases that stop you in your tracks for their relatability are frequent.

This is what fiction should feel like.

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Exquisite writing. Wonderful and real characters. Gently terrifying.

Reviewed: 03-18-24

Expertly handled telling of multiple stories from one ubiquitous and necessary character. All the characters are fully drawn, easily visualized by the reader, and each is without contradiction or incongruity. The plot rolls out in the minutae of a daily life that marches on under annihilating clouds of ash. Each character grows more important as the machinations of death roll through Himmel Street in Munich, Germany. Those initially unlikable characters grow in the reader's mind into real people whose humanizing stories. I found myself looking for every character in every scene -- often wrongly predicting their next revelation. As the characters assembled, I needed to make sure they were surviving their cicumstances.

Stories that allow characters to slowly reveal their true souls yet whose stories grow with the plot are the most engaging. This is one of those instances.

To choose a favorite character is not possible for me. With each chapter, I was alternately surprised, horrified, and delighted by the actions or words each produced.

In the end, or at the end of the portion of history this book comprises, I felt changed. How? I'm not sure. The presentation refuted my preconceived notions, forcing me to "see" things differently. Being blessedly unfamiliar with living through war in my front yard, I was also unfamiliar with the miracle of survival. Even in such devastation, human beings find nooks and crannies of beauty, joy, compassion and hope.

The author's decision to NOT exploit this story beyond the physical ruination of the town speaks to the restraint necessary to limit the story to one or two important effects the reader can take away for further consideration. This is NOT an ensemble cast; instead these many characters, while linked to each other, survive iin their own unique manner according to the passions of their hearts.

If you read this book, take a while after it ends to ponder it's effect on you, then look around and make sure your own actions reflect your soul.

One's heart and soul cannot rely on external events or people, but you will be shaped by them. This book showed me many sides of many ideas, and because of the author's passion and care in presenting his material, I learned as much about myself as I learned about living with war -- as much about long periods of cold and hunger as about the means to find peace in the "things" that conjure our loved ones to soothe our fears.

About death, Mr. Zusak gives us an almost tangible being. In "The Book Thief," death is doing its work but not without reflection and regret. Death has opinions and preferences, but death has no free will--only we humans do.

And then there are the books. There was a point in the story where I felt (physically) the connection between the books, the girl, and all the resulting connected tentacles of this microcosmic community. Books are the foundation upon which Leisel is drawn. Even before Liesel could read, she was attracted to the physicality of books, addicted we'd say today. She stole and hid them not knowing what they held, just feeling what could be. Her father, Max and the mayor's eccentric wife cemented the allure.

A stranger appears and unexpectedly alters many events and characters. Max may challenge your thoughts about the will to survive, He is a beacon, a saint, if you will.

I must stop writing or I'll reveal too much.

Can you tell, I loved it?

This is required reading in some Jr. Highs and high schools. I just read it for the first time (in my 70s). Just goes to show: We never stop learning.

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Something is missing

Reviewed: 11-10-22

Lacks tension/conflicts. JR is half invested, going thru the motions. a few fights, but not the same as previous. Reacher WILL win. We know that, but nobody really challenged him. No real intimacy with two women in the story. The story of the child intersected perfectly with the main plot, but... shrug.

Seems like the Child brothers tried hard to be PC. The main female character had too much "screen time." JR was so uninvested, he let her take over. The whole wrap up was unimpressive. The bad guys got what was coming... no real conflict. JR was all cerebral and less physical.

Not my favorite, and I've read them all. "Reacher said nothing" was over used, and lacked the punch that line always delivers when first uttered in the story.

Maybe next year.

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Grisham as Tolstoy......

Reviewed: 11-02-22

Too long, too many characters and their details. When I'm looking to read Grisham, I expect action, not saga. While it was interesting and had some historical value, it departed from my expectations. At least it came full circle tied neatly together for closure, tho the final scene was slightly tense. I'm not disappointed, per say; I'm simply surprised.

I never read reviews of my favorite authors' new work.Had l known, I'd have waited a month or so after reading a few other of my favorites' new stuff was published and read.

Recently, I heard an ad for a movie or TV show which is said to be about the Dixie Mafia, which until I read this, I'd never heard of. Could Grisham be involved in that production?

In summary. it's not classic Grisham. it's more of an encyclopedic explanation of an interesting time in the south.

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6 people found this helpful

Kept me listening

Reviewed: 11-05-21

Loved the pacing, most of the characters, the technology. The ending disappointed. Not the crime resolution -- that was perfect.

I didn't care much for the outcomes of the major characters. That could have been stronger. In fact, the final conversation seemed way out of whack. Something so uncertain for 14 hours suddenly became worth pursuing, as if the events of the story made the characters change their minds. Minor, really, but I wish the ending had ended on a more more logical outcome.

The key character had a paltry exit, and she was given, to me, a lukewarm final act.

All that being said, it's the best Grisham in a few years.

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It's not working for me. Reacher has become a bore

Reviewed: 11-02-21

Not up to the best books in this series. Lee, please retake control. The books have lost the heart-pounding climaxes I wait for in every installment. Too many women (like some of my favorite crime TV shows) which feels forced and added for correctness. We've seen Jack naked more than once and with all those fit women around him, he should be getting at least temporarily "involved" before hitting the highway. This book even lacked the standard thimb-out image at the close... or did I leave too soon?

I like Reacher's feats of strength and force. Too much talking now, IN FIRST PERSON no less. The last few books are simply not visual enough for me.

I'll wait again, and buy it again, but please either bring the guy fully back to life or retire him. This is like having him on life support. He'd be embarrassed to see himself so physically restrained. Apologies to both of you. I needed to say this.

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2 people found this helpful