Ohhhhh boy. This book. This was the last pick of the local library book club of the year, and it was much anticipated. It has received much acclaim, NPR said great things about it, and but for me, and my book club, it widely missed the mark. It was NOT loved. Or liked even. At this club we (about 16 folks) go around the room and give a score to a scale of 5 and this one didn’t even get past three. And there were a […]
Ladies Who Paint
When I first started reading The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, by Dominic Smith, I was pretty sure I didn’t like it. The first chapter felt like it was about dissatisfied rich people and I was not in the mood for that nonsense. Happily, it is not about dissatisfied rich people, nor is it about the theft and forgery of a Dutch painting, which is what I thought it was about after I decided it wasn’t about rich people. Really though, it’s about three […]
THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO WAS KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED (except obviously not)
I kind of hated reading this . I understand its goals and it had some interesting and touching moments, but was overall a slog to get through. One of many stories of childhood in the 1950s, I don’t think it offered any new point of view on the era. It does have an interesting look into grief and children, specifically losing a parent, but doesn’t dive as deeply into the topic as I wish it would have. The Mutual Admiration Society is made up of young Theresa “Tess” […]
What in the world is the purpose of this book? I am genuinely curious.
This review will contain spoilers, so if you want to avoid knowing all the details of the sparse and meaningless plot, maybe skip the first couple of paragraphs. Holden Caulfield is a self-important, spoiled and worthless little shit. At the start of the book, he is cooling his heels at the fourth boarding school he’s been expelled from because he just can’t be bothered to even try to apply himself (having failed four out of five subjects completely), and generally bitching about how phony his […]