Reviews

I really enjoyed Porter's writing and round each chapter as a standalone very enjoyable, but as a whole and especially as an audiobook I found the sprawling cast of characters way to hard to keep track of and found myself a little annoyed that the author was audacious enough to expect so much work from her readers. I needed a visual map of the family tree and I would have been good to go.

reflectiverambling_nalana's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

A decent multi generational family tale that had a rather tangled way of coming together. I question the use of choosing second or first person perspectives intermediately. While I also enjoyed many of the characters, I didn't always connect with all of them as the movement among them and the time frames felt a bit disjointed. I enjoyed it, there was fantastic narration but as a person who enjoyed the play that is so integral to part of the family's story, I'm not really certain there was a true need for that devise. Someone's coping mechanism could have been any sort of distracting obsession. I kept waiting for some great parallel. Unless that parallel is that we are all just swimming blindly, well I suppose that could be it. but for a reader who had never heard of it, I wonder if it would have just felt too arbitrary.

All the same, I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as I had anticipated.

ramthelonious's review against another edition

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inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

shelleydavis's review against another edition

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3.0

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this book.... one minute it’s great and I’m loving and the next chapter I’m confused and over it......

g_hammersmith's review

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4.0

I absolutely loved this book, I loved the format of it. Everything.

I absolutely loved the narrative, I love how it had pictures as well, it felt like to me a history book.

I wished some of the stories on some of the characters were longer but nonetheless it was a good book.

readingindreams's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

kleonard's review

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4.0

This is a sprawling mosaic of a book with fascinating and engaging and conflicted and very real characters that spans generations and friendships and family and good days and bad days and dark times and better ones. Although the beginning of the book and its very clinical tone initially turned me off, I'm glad I kept reading. As the stories of the many characters got underway, the writing became more intimate and interesting.

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