CBR10 Bingo: Snubbed (short-listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize) – BINGO #2! Jack is a typical five-year-old boy. He likes cartoons and birthday cake and bouncing on the bed. He does phys ed with his mother, timing how many laps they both can make around the room and celebrating when he wins. He likes picture books and drives his mother to distraction when he makes her read Dylan the Digger over and over and over. He’s whip smart for a 5-year-old; he knows that the […]
The 2nd Book in a Row for Me That Just Feels Overwhelmingly Lonely
This is a tough one… the characterization of the protagonist in this novel is absolutely fascinating, yet I don’t know that the book as a whole worked for me. Such a specific tone was slowly developed throughout the first 2/3 of the story, easing along gentle to the inevitable conclusion, which then came about so quickly that I felt like there had to be more. Eileen is named after it’s protagonist, Eileen, as she recounts the story of how she disappeared from her small hometown […]
Yeah, I’d have snubbed it too
This is my first bingo square attempt, for having been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. And boy oh boy am I not surprised this didn’t get it. I liked Then We Came To The End well enough; The Unnamed slightly less so. But MAN did I not care for this book. The plot revolves around our dentist protagonist and his attempt to track down the identity thief posting cultish religious (or anti-religious? The book insists it’s sort of both but reading this thing through […]
The Hell of War on the Home Front
Read as part of CBR10Bingo: Almost award winner. Perfidia was nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize but did not win. It speaks to the times we live in that the depth of my cynicism has allowed me to appreciate James Ellroy novels in a way I never could before this summer. This is the second book of his I’ve read the last few months and it’s one of the best things I read in 2018. It could also be that this one is slightly better than the […]