The House on Fortune Street: A Novel
by Margot Livesey
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.88 You Save: $23.07 (92%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The House on Fortune Street: A Novel
Book Review: Fate, Luck and Inappropriate Desires
Summary: 5 Stars
At one point in Margaret Livesey's excellent The House on Fortune Street, one of her characters points out that how we handle our inappropriate desires reveals much about us and that statement is true for the four main characters in the novel. Livesey tells the story of three people living in the Fortune Street house--Sean, his girlfriend Abigail, who owns the house, and her friend from university, Dara--as well as Dara's father Cameron. The novel is divided into four sections, each told from one of their perspectives. With each section, the reader comes closer to understanding the true motivations of the characters, the truth of the lies they tell to themselves and to others. Each one of them deals with their own inappropriate desires--among them infidelity, pedophelia, suicide--some act, others don't. The characters' lives intertwine cleverly, entertainingly and the narrative is full of rich images and wonderful observations. I enjoyed this novel a good deal; it was hard to put down. Enjoy!Book Review: book whiplash
Summary: 2 Stars
I loved this book. That is, until I fell off a cliff about one quarter of the way in.
It read marvelously, with none of the sticking points that authors use to make you wonder, or keep you kind of artificially thrilled to keep you going. It flowed on in a really marvelous way.
Then suddenly, it stopped. I was reading an entirely different story. I checked the book jacket, was this a collection of short stories? No, evidently not. I started thumbing through the pages, trying to find names from the 1st section. And I did. Oh, so it's switched point of views, I get it.
But it was so abrupt, I just couldn't go on. I went to the 3rd section, and started reading that, just to keep what I loved from the 1st one, but it didn't work very well.
I'm supposed to finish this book for a book club, but... I don't know, there are so many books out there!
Book Review: she just gets better
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read all Margot Livesey's books and have enjoyed each one but this is outstanding and what craftsmanship finely executed and great the mixing great literature with her own literary style is outstanding. All the characters possess enough flaws in character to make them memorable in themselves and that is just it, these characters are so real,like friends you've known and yes, even like yourself and your own families. They are human all the way. Ah,"suffering gives us souls", she proves it. Exceptional writing by a writer who knows her craft and in this one she is in control and flawless all the way.
Worthy of The Booker Prize.
In this time with tons of awful books and writing that is absurd and without purpose this book is a breath of fresh air. Truly a great read and her best.
Book Review: brilliant, her best
Summary: 5 Stars
The House on Fortune Street is an exquisitely written, witty, deeply insightful novel about love, lust, family, friendship, formal education, careers, and luck--Livesey has given us the world. The innovative structure, which sounds intimidating, is seamless and very smart, delivering wonderfully well-rounded characters with whom we sympathize even when they behave badly. The work is marked by subtlety, yet achieves a constant strain of dramatic tension, which exerts a greater and greater pull on the reader. The book also contains extraordinarily moving passages, and should be required reading for serious students of contemporary literary fiction. It's been a long time since I've read a book of such depth.Book Review: Not up to "Banishing Verona"
Summary: 3 Stars
I have to disagree. "Fortune Street" is a disappointment following "Banishing Verona," still Livesey's best. After the melodrama and shock of the first chapter, the story starts over in a new setting, with a new cast and a new problem. The novel, which is really a series of novellas, never recovers its drama until the last pages of revelation. The four chapters, with four points of view, allude respectively to Keats, Dodgson, Charlotte Bronte, and Dickens, and the links are apt, but the suspense is gone after the first part. And Sean, the Keats scholar, from chapter one departs for good.
And why some many meals? These people are always eating.