June 29, 2016
This is one of those rare examples of the movie being better than the book. Yeah. I somehow managed to get through it, but this book was like one never-ending series of mood-setting lists. An example:
"Sally thought long and hard each time she hung up the phone. She thought about the girl in the drugstore and the sound of Antonia’s footsteps on the stairs when she went to bed without a good-night hug. She thought about Michael’s life and his death, and about every second they had spent together. She considered each of his kisses and all the words he had ever said to her. Everything was still gray— the paintings Antonia brought home from school and slipped beneath her door, the flannel pajamas Kylie wore on chilly mornings, the velvet curtains that kept the world at bay. But now Sally began to order things in her mind— grief and joy, dollars and cents, a baby’s cry and the look on her face when you blew her a kiss on a windy afternoon. Such things might be worth something, a glance, a peek, a deeper look."
I count 4 lists in just one paragraph. Within the next page, the total of similar lists goes up to 8. In two pages. This kind of writing feels sloppy when it is used beyond the beginning stages of scene setting, and when it is almost the only way the author seems to able to convey meaning it becomes teeth-gnashingly annoying. Add to this a complete lack of momentum and a generally meandering story line and you get a sad face (or maybe bitch face if I’m being honest) and a thumbs down from me.
"Sally thought long and hard each time she hung up the phone. She thought about the girl in the drugstore and the sound of Antonia’s footsteps on the stairs when she went to bed without a good-night hug. She thought about Michael’s life and his death, and about every second they had spent together. She considered each of his kisses and all the words he had ever said to her. Everything was still gray— the paintings Antonia brought home from school and slipped beneath her door, the flannel pajamas Kylie wore on chilly mornings, the velvet curtains that kept the world at bay. But now Sally began to order things in her mind— grief and joy, dollars and cents, a baby’s cry and the look on her face when you blew her a kiss on a windy afternoon. Such things might be worth something, a glance, a peek, a deeper look."
I count 4 lists in just one paragraph. Within the next page, the total of similar lists goes up to 8. In two pages. This kind of writing feels sloppy when it is used beyond the beginning stages of scene setting, and when it is almost the only way the author seems to able to convey meaning it becomes teeth-gnashingly annoying. Add to this a complete lack of momentum and a generally meandering story line and you get a sad face (or maybe bitch face if I’m being honest) and a thumbs down from me.
