kimschmidt's review against another edition
2.0
I think the main problem I had with this book was I was reading reviews before I started which made me actually not even want to read this book. It was fairly fast-moving but I don't feel I got anything from it at all. Not pleasure or enjoyment.
lynnski's review against another edition
1.0
If this book were longer I never would have finished it.
rachelini's review against another edition
2.0
There's quite a trend right now of the interconnected stories - half novel, half short stories. But I didn't think this one worked - there were no stakes, and nothing particularly interesting in the characters.
sharonfalduto's review against another edition
2.0
I am so glad to be done with that book. Why did I even finish it? One, it was pretty short (less than 200 pages and sometimes there were blank pages between chapters), and two, so I could complain about it. Is this how books are written nowadays? Non linear narratives with mulitple perspectives, none of which are characters I particularly cared about? Why is the main character's (I guess) name EV? not Eve? Why does she call her mother "mei mei"? Explain, dammit!
I am also so tired of authors writing about 1968. Get over it. You weren't there. You probably weren't even born.
I have to start choosing better books.
I am also so tired of authors writing about 1968. Get over it. You weren't there. You probably weren't even born.
I have to start choosing better books.
wordnerdy's review against another edition
2.0
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2011/06/2011-book-164.html
amysbrittain's review against another edition
3.0
The characters in Cooke's novel give in to their base desires and are shaped--and sometimes predictably ruined--by doing so. Sometimes they also made me want to bang my head against the wall.
Um, WTH with the ongoing shift from third- to first-person point of view for the main protagonist? That made me grind my teeth a bit.
Um, WTH with the ongoing shift from third- to first-person point of view for the main protagonist? That made me grind my teeth a bit.
jilliancoleen18's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting and beautiful, although attempting to read it during the weeks surrounding graduation was a poor choice as I struggled to maintain focus on everything that was happening. Should be marked to re-read; I am sure in calmer context I would get a lot more out of it and better understand everything that lies between the lines of this novel.
yangyvonne's review against another edition
3.0
This book spans almost 50 years and involves a private high school that is changing with the times and enrolling minorities and girls. But, the book is less about the school than the people who surround it. We meet "God" (Goddard) who is the reluctant to change Headmaster. He has many women flow through his life: students, friends, lovers, secretaries, etc. These women make up the "Daughters" of the "Revolution," which is a sexual one, and over the decades, we see how each develops, grows, and changes. We also see how God reacts to these changes and how his own sexuality ruins him in the end.
This book was NOTHING AT ALL like the jacket description. The author writes short stories and this novel read like a bunch thrown together. Mei Mei is just plain odd, but EV, her daughter, is even worse - a completely maladjusted and twisted woman due to hr upbringing and exposure to "God" and his repressed ways as a child. God is the worst of all, forced to accept coeducation at the school, then circumcision very late in life, and eventual descent into total delusion with no one left to tend to his memoirs - lost in memories of his affair with Mrs. Rebozo.
This book was NOTHING AT ALL like the jacket description. The author writes short stories and this novel read like a bunch thrown together. Mei Mei is just plain odd, but EV, her daughter, is even worse - a completely maladjusted and twisted woman due to hr upbringing and exposure to "God" and his repressed ways as a child. God is the worst of all, forced to accept coeducation at the school, then circumcision very late in life, and eventual descent into total delusion with no one left to tend to his memoirs - lost in memories of his affair with Mrs. Rebozo.
djrmelvin's review against another edition
2.0
More a set of linked short stories than a novel, there's so little solid story telling in this book that it goes nowhere. The settings are handled well enough, with obvious references to actual historical events thrown in to establish the time period, but the characters read like plot devices more than people. They're there to demonstrate the societal changes that were occurring for women, not to be flesh and blood lives of their own.