Charming Billy is a novel very much rooted in time & place. It is a book that frames the particular, even the ordinary with lilting & uplifting language rather than attempting to portray things that are broadly-based or complex. In reading this novel for a local book discussion group I was remind...
Isn't it funny how readers can have such vastly different reactions to the same book? I think I loved Alice McDermott's At Weddings and Wakes for just the reasons many other (Amazon) readers panned it. Too wordy? Beautifully lyrical. And actually I felt that she told her story with a perfect ...
I had wanted to read this book for a long time, mainly because I saw the movie as a child and I loved it. The book is so different from the movie, it's like two completely different stories. Unfortunately, I liked the movie better.The book deals with teenage Sheryl and her greaser boyfriend Ric...
Call it "Reviving Ophelia - Again." In 1994, Mary Pipher galvanized the nation with her exposé of the poisonous social system girls enter when they become teenagers. This year, it's the novelists' turn, and their descriptions of adolescence are even more provocative than Pipher's psychological st...
This is one of those novels that I thought to be a so-so and yet it turned out to be exceptionally good. For me, its strongest suit is the opening scenes. There is no earth-shattering event like atomic bomb or an unforgettable quote but just a description of a woman coming out from a late morning...