Mommo (Kız Kardeşim) itibaren içinde LIT biçim

Andrius Nesvarbu andrius99 — The story takes place in 1941 and 1953. It was okay, but hard to read in places.

Zali Mazli _ali_azl — I've never really understood popular, major award-winning novels. The type that have all kinds of weird characters, at least one incidence of incest, rape, or bestiality (seriously! all of them!), and pompous in-your-face symbols that scream from the pages as you're reading. There are two types of these kinds of books: the enduring kind, such as Beloved, that it feels so many people have read, and the temporary kind, that circle around the subway reading lists, are NY times best sellers for about a month or so, maybe make it to Oprah, and then disappear, just like that. Anyway, to the point. Beloved is a book that comes with a lot of baggage. It's considered a contemporary classic, it has won the Pulitzer, and you can't be in a room and say "Beloved" without at least two people turning around and going, "OMG! I looove that book! So amazing!" All that just puts so much pressure on a person to like it. I tried to, and partially succeeded in doing so. Having read Toni Morrison's work before and being a not-really fan, I decided to read Beloved because of hearing so many rave reviews of it. I like heavy books, and a book centered on African American slavery seemed interesting enough. Unfortunately, I did not appreciate the magical realism, which turned out to have a large part in the book. Magical realism seems like taking the wimpy way out to me: you aren't writing realistically, but you aren't exactly being Sci Fi either. I didn't find myself connecting to the main characters of Denver, Sethe, or Beloved, and I am not sure if you are supposed to. Beloved seemed a bit stark to me, devoid of the emotions you would expect from a book centered on such subjects as death and slavery. I couldn't quite decipher what characters were feeling at important parts of the book. I liked the plot of the book however, although parts of it actually reminded me of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I read in 6th grade (dorky, yes). If someone approaches the book from a purely literary standpoint, and dives in looking specifically for literary themes, I am sure they would be overjoyed with this book. I was looking more for a satisfying read, and I can hardly blame Beloved for lacking this.

Jesse Vigil _esse_ — ** spoiler alert ** This was a pretty quick read. I saw it on display at bookstores for years and never had even the slightest tingle of interest in reading it. Not one bit. Fast forward to living in the middle of NOWHERE hundreds of miles from the nearest English bookstore, and you can get some idea of why I finally picked this up after a visitor left it behind. (Incidentally, that's how I acquire most of my reading materials these days.) Even with dismally low expectations, I still thought this book was sorta lame. Not offensively bad or anything, but poorly written, conceived, and filled with fluff. I nearly gagged at the ending when everything was wrapped up in this nice pretty bow made out of cheese and nostalgia. I did get through it out of pure curiosity about what was in store for the main characters, but little else. Amateurish prose and tedious descriptions made it drag. And I HATED the chapters that took place in the present in the old folks' home. I friggin' hate that gimmick in books and movies. It makes no sense to me, served no real purpose in the telling of this story (and rarely does... it just padded the length of Benjamin Button without adding substance, which might have been decent if it wasn't so long.....). I digress. I don't care about him as an old man. He's not interesting. He's a cliche, decrepit and curmudgeonly and forgetful—and forgotten by his family. So boring. I waited until the very end to see why we even needed to see him as an old man, and was let down by the supposed pay off of all those extra chapters and descriptions of old wrinkly man bits and toothless meals. All that should have been cut out. This book is for people who enjoy everything-ends-up-roses kind of crap. I feel like filling in the blanks between the main story in the 30s and the present discredited everything about the characters. I mean, c'mon. They go live on a perfect farm and live a perfect life filled with perfectly imperfect babies? Barf. Boring. Lame. There was absolutely ZERO relationship between Jacob as a young man and Jacob as an old man. None. There was nothing tying the present to the past expect for the circus being in town. It was all so lame. And BTW (SPOILER ALERT), did anyone else call bullshit on the fact that 8 men got thrown from a train while Jacob was skulking around and he didn't hear anything? I guess trains are loud and all, but those men didn't put up a fight? We know the window was open in the car he was in. Really? No screams or anything? Seriously?

Loona Põtter loonafa31 — Always enjoy JA Jance books, lots of suspense, good characters and storyline.