The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
by Andrew Sean Greer
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Book Reviews of The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
Book Review: I enjoyed this book
Summary: 5 Stars
Overall, I found this to be a very thoughtful and beautifully written book. I enjoyed reading it and regretted reaching the end. For me, that's often the ultimate test of a book -- whether or not I'm sorry to say goodbye to the characters.
I agree with others who have commented that the "gotcha" twists were a bit strained. There were a few passages where I found my mind wandering, or found myself growing a bit impatient for the action to pick up. Nevertheless, it is an interesting storyline and I found the characters to be well developed, despite the spare prose and the novel's relatively short length.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be drawn into an interesting and thought-provoking story.
Book Review: Poetry as novel...
Summary: 4 Stars
What a lovely, interesting, poetic novel. However, it had a major flaw:
the husband was not vivid enough for me. He was continually described as handsome and
congenial, but other than that he was something of a cipher. I wanted to know more about
him, because I needed to CARE that Pearlie wanted him to stay, needed to know why, in fact,
he was so loveable and necessary to her, as a human being as much as a husband. However,
Pearlie, Buzz, Sonny, the aunts - these characters were well-drawn and I felt I knew them.
They were well worth the reading.
Book Review: San Francisco Dreaming
Summary: 5 Stars
An African American woman wrestles with her husband's mysterious past when a white man shows up on her doorstep and reveals that he was once the man's lover. Set in 1950's San Francisco, Greer's novel is a kind of Sophie's Choice filtered through the lens of Douglas Sirk. Greer keeps the melodrama at bay in an evocative portrait of postwar life, largely on the strength of the wife's first-person narrative voice. What emerges through the eyes of its wary, observant protagonist is an original snapshot of black life chafing against an America on the verge of its next revolution.Book Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
I tried. I really did. But I just couldn't get into this book, and ultimately I didn't finish it. The action was veeery slow, and it was hard to connect to the characters because the descriptions of what was going on in their heads was a bit mysterious. In the interest of maintaining suspense about plot twists, the author withheld too much about characters' perspectives. I couldn't relate to anything about the time, place, mindset or characterization of anyone in the book, so it just never grabbed me.Book Review: Apt Title
Summary: 3 Stars
Well, this was an interesting novel. Short, but rather powerful in its own way. Well-written with strong characters. I enjoyed it, but just didn't love it. Maybe because I loved _The Confessions of Max Tivoli_ so much more? I really don't have any specific complaints, other than it was just missing that extra something to make it a wonderful book.