The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
justolenka's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
jerry22's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
klmeyers's review against another edition
2.0
This book never seemed to get to the point. Did it even have a plot? I have no idea. I was lost in all the poetic dialogue that never seemed to go anywhere.
turquoisetyto's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
thesynonymbun's review
4.0
I’ve read two books this year that were marked as young adult, and fantasy. I went into each not knowing anything about them, and oh boy were any
preconceived notions I had about either of them completely wrong.
Dandelion Wine reads almost as a collection of short essays about a small community called Green Town, set in the late Twenties. They’re all great individually, my favorites were Mrs Elmira Brown, and the one about The Tarot Witch.
As I said, they’re all good on their own, but this is one of those books that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.
I turned 30 this year, and as many do, I suspect, have spent a lot of time thinking about Life and Death. I made the realization that Douglas does at around the same age: everything ends. And my milestone birthday had me obsessing about ends. But Bradbury walked me through it. We all realize that we’ll never be the person we were when we were younger. We can’t stop people from leaving us. And we’re lucky, we’ll all go like: in our own time, in our own bed, surrounded by people we love.
All this does not make change, or identity, or death less scary. I didn’t feel relief in finishing it. What I did feel is a sense of camaraderie, and in a book that is so pleasant to read, that’s enough for me.
preconceived notions I had about either of them completely wrong.
Dandelion Wine reads almost as a collection of short essays about a small community called Green Town, set in the late Twenties. They’re all great individually, my favorites were Mrs Elmira Brown, and the one about The Tarot Witch.
As I said, they’re all good on their own, but this is one of those books that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.
I turned 30 this year, and as many do, I suspect, have spent a lot of time thinking about Life and Death. I made the realization that Douglas does at around the same age: everything ends. And my milestone birthday had me obsessing about ends. But Bradbury walked me through it. We all realize that we’ll never be the person we were when we were younger. We can’t stop people from leaving us. And we’re lucky, we’ll all go like
Spoiler
great-grandmaAll this does not make change, or identity, or death less scary. I didn’t feel relief in finishing it. What I did feel is a sense of camaraderie, and in a book that is so pleasant to read, that’s enough for me.
cryo_guy's review against another edition
4.0
“It is the privilege of old people to seem to know everything. But it's an act and a mask, like every other act and mask. Between ourselves, we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying, How do you like my mask, my act, my certainty? Isn't life a play? Don't I play it well?”
*
“Some people turn sad awfully young,” he said. “No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.”
Hello dear readers!
Bradbury has been on my list of authors to revisit-my recurring authors-and Dandelion Wine is one I've had on my list for a while ever since I found a Bantam paperback in a garage sale. Love those covers from the 70s. The last Bradbury I read was The Illustrated Man in 2015 so I've waited way too long to return to him. I will blame everyone but myself for this error. THANKS EVERYONE. The Illustrated Man was cool, lots of very neat short stories, but the book that made me fall in love with his writing was The Martian Chronicles which I still recommend to people whenever they ask me about classic sci-fi. Well, now that we're here why don't we get on with things?
When I first read something about this book I got the impression that it was a battle between the young and the old for control of a small town in Illinois. I interpreted that through my experience with Bradbury and assumed some kind of fantastical standoff between parties, lines of battle being drawn. Then I read something about it being magical realism and said okay that still fits it'll just be a little realer. I figured that it would follow some general plot of conflict between the two groups. Contrary to everything I thought the book was, it turned about to be quite different. A much more realistic collection of vignettes that only touches on magical realism is a very metaphorical way-in the way the boys imagine fantastical elements to intrude upon their lives (and maybe some of the circumstances are out of the ordinary-but nothing truly “magical”). But all this isn't to pick at it's placement in the magical realism genre. I don't think it belongs there, personally, but I'm not criticizing the book for it-just clarifying how I managed my approach to the book. I was expecting magic and got a very vivid portrayal of life in small town Illinois in the late 20s, the summer of 28 to be specific. At first I'll admit I was a little put off. Page after page, however, Bradbury won me over, demonstrating how he could weave an interesting story despite having no magic or science fiction themes dazzling my eyes. And more than that, he showed that there were some charming and interesting things about mundane life. This is something I struggle with-many books I read that are rooted in the mundane simply bore or frustrate me. A matter of preference or a personal failing, it's not just that I want dragons, aliens, or magic exploding in my face but you've got to give me something more than stuff I've already and daily experience in my actual life. I grant that others might feel differently. At any rate, I came to enjoy hearing about Douglas and Tom's adventures in Green Town and the various colorful denizens that all seemed to embody a telling theme about life without particularly intending to. The book avoids caricature nicely.
Let's get a little more specific. The collection opens with an intro in Bradbury's voice about why he wrote Dandelion Wine called Just This Side of Byzantium which is really great. It's even got a neat little poem! Bradbury is an imaginative fellow, but the best thing about him is that he has a feel for what writing is supposed to do without bashing you over the head with it. It's always nice when an author reads like they know what they're doing. And of course, Green Town is based on his childhood home of Waukegan-so we've got a tinge of autobiography going on. What I had heard and assumed would be some sort of epic battle between the young and old turned out to be merely competing yet complementary ways of seeing and living in the world and Green Town. The collection opens with Douglas' realization that he is, powerfully and awfully, alive and later he faces of his with his own mortality in several different ways whether it's confronting the fact of one of his friends moving away, the preservation of memories and icons from his childhood, or his bout with a mysterious illness that incapacitates him with a fervent fever from which he dramatically recovers. Interspersed within these are other stories of living and dying-The elderly coming to their fated end, or looking back on their lives; youths confronted with a serial strangler. It's all great stuff. Depth tucked in realistic stories tinged with magic but not really needing it. The real charm of it is some of the most mundane issues like when grandpa doesn't like the newfangled grass that doesn't need to be cut. Or the inventor who wants to make people happy with a happiness machine but only makes them dread the lack of it in their own lives. There's a moralistic bent to some of the vignettes, but some of them end with less of an arc, simply another day with curious happenings.
I'll reiterate that it did take me some time to warm up to Douglas and his take on life, but I did and I'm glad for it. I liked the stories that took a break from Douglas and one of the funniest was a contest between two women for presidency of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge which gives this choice string of insults:
“Why, lady, you're only the second most clumsy woman in Green Town, Illinois. You can't sit down without playing the chair like an accordion. You can't stand up but what you kick the cat. You can't trot across an open meadow without falling into a well. Your life has been one long decline, Elmira Alice Brown, so why not admit it?”
And maybe my favorite was when Douglas tries to steal the fortune teller arcade machine dummy so that he can “save” her from the disgruntled arcade man who tires of fixing her for little payoff.
This book is an easy read in short chunks. I took to reading a vignette before bed each night. My recommendation comes with the knowledge that this isn't sci-fi or fantasy like some of Bradbury's other stuff but that it is as carefully crafted and thoughtfully composed as The Martian Chronicles, which is exactly why I like that book so much. It wasn't just that it was Martians and fun future stuff, but it was put along a chronology of fascinating developments and progression! This happens over just one summer, but despite that you get to know the characters better and better and it isn't a weakness that there is a limited amount of time for character development. You become endeared to the characters as they are. Easy to recommend but hard to place. Maybe those who eschew sci-fi and fantasy for being “too unreal” would like something like this? Hmph, who knows? The way Douglas does impose a certain magical quality to his life is, as I've said, endearing. And there are just as many moments that lack that altogether but nonetheless pull you in.
Alright well this sounds all very positive, I can see now that I really did enjoy this book. The contemplative nature of many of the vignettes certainly lent themselves to my sort of reading, but they did so without being overly dense.
Good show old boy!
*
“Some people turn sad awfully young,” he said. “No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.”
Hello dear readers!
Bradbury has been on my list of authors to revisit-my recurring authors-and Dandelion Wine is one I've had on my list for a while ever since I found a Bantam paperback in a garage sale. Love those covers from the 70s. The last Bradbury I read was The Illustrated Man in 2015 so I've waited way too long to return to him. I will blame everyone but myself for this error. THANKS EVERYONE. The Illustrated Man was cool, lots of very neat short stories, but the book that made me fall in love with his writing was The Martian Chronicles which I still recommend to people whenever they ask me about classic sci-fi. Well, now that we're here why don't we get on with things?
When I first read something about this book I got the impression that it was a battle between the young and the old for control of a small town in Illinois. I interpreted that through my experience with Bradbury and assumed some kind of fantastical standoff between parties, lines of battle being drawn. Then I read something about it being magical realism and said okay that still fits it'll just be a little realer. I figured that it would follow some general plot of conflict between the two groups. Contrary to everything I thought the book was, it turned about to be quite different. A much more realistic collection of vignettes that only touches on magical realism is a very metaphorical way-in the way the boys imagine fantastical elements to intrude upon their lives (and maybe some of the circumstances are out of the ordinary-but nothing truly “magical”). But all this isn't to pick at it's placement in the magical realism genre. I don't think it belongs there, personally, but I'm not criticizing the book for it-just clarifying how I managed my approach to the book. I was expecting magic and got a very vivid portrayal of life in small town Illinois in the late 20s, the summer of 28 to be specific. At first I'll admit I was a little put off. Page after page, however, Bradbury won me over, demonstrating how he could weave an interesting story despite having no magic or science fiction themes dazzling my eyes. And more than that, he showed that there were some charming and interesting things about mundane life. This is something I struggle with-many books I read that are rooted in the mundane simply bore or frustrate me. A matter of preference or a personal failing, it's not just that I want dragons, aliens, or magic exploding in my face but you've got to give me something more than stuff I've already and daily experience in my actual life. I grant that others might feel differently. At any rate, I came to enjoy hearing about Douglas and Tom's adventures in Green Town and the various colorful denizens that all seemed to embody a telling theme about life without particularly intending to. The book avoids caricature nicely.
Let's get a little more specific. The collection opens with an intro in Bradbury's voice about why he wrote Dandelion Wine called Just This Side of Byzantium which is really great. It's even got a neat little poem! Bradbury is an imaginative fellow, but the best thing about him is that he has a feel for what writing is supposed to do without bashing you over the head with it. It's always nice when an author reads like they know what they're doing. And of course, Green Town is based on his childhood home of Waukegan-so we've got a tinge of autobiography going on. What I had heard and assumed would be some sort of epic battle between the young and old turned out to be merely competing yet complementary ways of seeing and living in the world and Green Town. The collection opens with Douglas' realization that he is, powerfully and awfully, alive and later he faces of his with his own mortality in several different ways whether it's confronting the fact of one of his friends moving away, the preservation of memories and icons from his childhood, or his bout with a mysterious illness that incapacitates him with a fervent fever from which he dramatically recovers. Interspersed within these are other stories of living and dying-The elderly coming to their fated end, or looking back on their lives; youths confronted with a serial strangler. It's all great stuff. Depth tucked in realistic stories tinged with magic but not really needing it. The real charm of it is some of the most mundane issues like when grandpa doesn't like the newfangled grass that doesn't need to be cut. Or the inventor who wants to make people happy with a happiness machine but only makes them dread the lack of it in their own lives. There's a moralistic bent to some of the vignettes, but some of them end with less of an arc, simply another day with curious happenings.
I'll reiterate that it did take me some time to warm up to Douglas and his take on life, but I did and I'm glad for it. I liked the stories that took a break from Douglas and one of the funniest was a contest between two women for presidency of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge which gives this choice string of insults:
“Why, lady, you're only the second most clumsy woman in Green Town, Illinois. You can't sit down without playing the chair like an accordion. You can't stand up but what you kick the cat. You can't trot across an open meadow without falling into a well. Your life has been one long decline, Elmira Alice Brown, so why not admit it?”
And maybe my favorite was when Douglas tries to steal the fortune teller arcade machine dummy so that he can “save” her from the disgruntled arcade man who tires of fixing her for little payoff.
This book is an easy read in short chunks. I took to reading a vignette before bed each night. My recommendation comes with the knowledge that this isn't sci-fi or fantasy like some of Bradbury's other stuff but that it is as carefully crafted and thoughtfully composed as The Martian Chronicles, which is exactly why I like that book so much. It wasn't just that it was Martians and fun future stuff, but it was put along a chronology of fascinating developments and progression! This happens over just one summer, but despite that you get to know the characters better and better and it isn't a weakness that there is a limited amount of time for character development. You become endeared to the characters as they are. Easy to recommend but hard to place. Maybe those who eschew sci-fi and fantasy for being “too unreal” would like something like this? Hmph, who knows? The way Douglas does impose a certain magical quality to his life is, as I've said, endearing. And there are just as many moments that lack that altogether but nonetheless pull you in.
Alright well this sounds all very positive, I can see now that I really did enjoy this book. The contemplative nature of many of the vignettes certainly lent themselves to my sort of reading, but they did so without being overly dense.
Good show old boy!
nicolaspratt's review against another edition
5.0
A beautiful, riveting, real book. Bradbury depicts the perfect view of the summer of 1928 from the varied perspectives of the mid-American residents of Greentown Illinois.
My own memories of childhood summers were rekindled as I read Dandelion Wine, the life-changing memories, vivid sights and sounds, and loves/fears were all brought back.
My own memories of childhood summers were rekindled as I read Dandelion Wine, the life-changing memories, vivid sights and sounds, and loves/fears were all brought back.
_jk_'s review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
22 Short Films About Springfield meets Treehouse of Horror. Bradbury's writing is rhythm and poetry; his vivid imagination in the everyday is remarkable. Childhood and old age describing one other. This is not Fahrenheit 451. Someday I'm going to visit that ravine -- when it's light out.