peterongcook's review
3.0
Wright is a talented writer. When you read American Pop, you easily find yourself interested in what’s going on in nice prose with a somewhat sophisticated vocabulary.
The story takes place through a series of time jumps. We start at a New Years party and meet all of the main characters, but then the story just starts transitioning from time frame to time frame anywhere over the span of about 120 years where tangents become plot points. I’m not opposed to this kind of writing, but I feel like it was done because it’s the author’s trademark device that he does well, and not because it serves the narrative.
There’s no cadence or pattern to the time jumps. There is a gradual release of narrative that I think is supposed to be linear in some aspect that isn’t temporal, but I don’t see why it couldn’t have been temporal or perhaps used a less frenetic method of time jumping.
Some of the transitions were okay, and kind of natural. There are some stretches though, where we get something like “so-and-so walked past a shop where so-and-so was eating. That guy did this thing that is related to this other thing. This other thing was playing on the radio when yet another person was driving down the street 50 years earlier. That person drove past the next person I’m going to talk about.” Not all time jump transitions are that egregious, but enough were that I felt it was kind of insulting. Other people may like this though.
Otherwise, this book is a fine chapter in its genre, which is a multi-generational rags-to-riches-and-downfall-of-a-dynasty book. We follow a family over 5 generations, from industrial London to post-civil war Mississippi to the 1980s. We get to see people get rich and be rich and have problems like us, or rich people problems. I enjoyed that part of the story. I kind of wished we could have spent more time with the 4th generation people, but I think they had to be obscured for one of the main plot tragedies.
I’d read another Snowden Wright book. This one was alright.
The story takes place through a series of time jumps. We start at a New Years party and meet all of the main characters, but then the story just starts transitioning from time frame to time frame anywhere over the span of about 120 years where tangents become plot points. I’m not opposed to this kind of writing, but I feel like it was done because it’s the author’s trademark device that he does well, and not because it serves the narrative.
There’s no cadence or pattern to the time jumps. There is a gradual release of narrative that I think is supposed to be linear in some aspect that isn’t temporal, but I don’t see why it couldn’t have been temporal or perhaps used a less frenetic method of time jumping.
Some of the transitions were okay, and kind of natural. There are some stretches though, where we get something like “so-and-so walked past a shop where so-and-so was eating. That guy did this thing that is related to this other thing. This other thing was playing on the radio when yet another person was driving down the street 50 years earlier. That person drove past the next person I’m going to talk about.” Not all time jump transitions are that egregious, but enough were that I felt it was kind of insulting. Other people may like this though.
Otherwise, this book is a fine chapter in its genre, which is a multi-generational rags-to-riches-and-downfall-of-a-dynasty book. We follow a family over 5 generations, from industrial London to post-civil war Mississippi to the 1980s. We get to see people get rich and be rich and have problems like us, or rich people problems. I enjoyed that part of the story. I kind of wished we could have spent more time with the 4th generation people, but I think they had to be obscured for one of the main plot tragedies.
I’d read another Snowden Wright book. This one was alright.
bkish's review
5.0
This is one bizarre book and I appreciate the writer with much of what he did to portray a fictional family associated with a soda drink competitive with Cola and Pepsi called Panola Cola with some secret ingredient. the book begins with a timeline of the main people in this Forster family. There are so many delightful twists to this book. As a very constant reader Snowden Wright did some things that are not usual for a novelist.
First he would introduce a character in the family then tell the reader when he or she died and how. Then he would mix in famous people as if they were involved with the people in this family. Call it name dropping - so he names these famous people who came to the funeral of the man who invented the Cola Houghton Forster. All of this pulls in the reader.
This is a book I was almost sorry that it ended. What also I think is unique is the one Forster who survived the last one I would expect and yet it does make sense.
this is an amazing story very very worth reading
Judy
First he would introduce a character in the family then tell the reader when he or she died and how. Then he would mix in famous people as if they were involved with the people in this family. Call it name dropping - so he names these famous people who came to the funeral of the man who invented the Cola Houghton Forster. All of this pulls in the reader.
This is a book I was almost sorry that it ended. What also I think is unique is the one Forster who survived the last one I would expect and yet it does make sense.
this is an amazing story very very worth reading
Judy
especiallybooks's review
3.0
This story is said to parallel the lives of the real Coca-Cola dynasty but it is about a fictional family and the PanCola empire. The book is an interesting study of what happens to a family dynasty when your product is no longer marketable. Unfotunately, I found myself getting a bit bogged down in the details but I did enjoy the characters and the things that happened to them. But I felt the book, like others have said, could have used a bit more editing.
aedgeworth27's review
4.0
I won this ARC on @goodreads giveaways! 🥤🥤I was asked a few times what "American Pop" is about while reading. And the best way I described it to someone was "It's like the Kennedy's started Coca Cola". Snowden Wright's newest novel "American Pop" a historical fiction that recounts the (fictional) story of the Forster family, a family led by Houghton Forster who while working as a soda jerk in his father's pharmacy in the late 1890's, creates an overnight sensation--Panola Cola or PanCola. He and his new bride, and eventually their four children, are catapulted into fame and learn quickly that none of them handle their privileges well. 🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤🥤While Wright's novel is fiction, it is written like a biography mentioning concocted magazine articles and memoirs written by the characters. I loved that aspect--I wanted to read those books too!
While Wright is detailing the experiences of 2 generations (and a bit of a third and fourth), he does not write chronologically. The book opens on New Years Eve 1939 but jumps back to 1898, then forward to the 1960s, then back to WWI, then forward to 1980's. It took me some time to get used to this flying back and forth through time and I found the family tree at the beginning of the book very helpful in that. His text is rich and detailed and called for a slower read to really enthrall myself with the story.
I highly recommend picking up this novel and giving it a long, slow read!
Thank you to @goodreads and @williammorrow for this review copy!
While Wright is detailing the experiences of 2 generations (and a bit of a third and fourth), he does not write chronologically. The book opens on New Years Eve 1939 but jumps back to 1898, then forward to the 1960s, then back to WWI, then forward to 1980's. It took me some time to get used to this flying back and forth through time and I found the family tree at the beginning of the book very helpful in that. His text is rich and detailed and called for a slower read to really enthrall myself with the story.
I highly recommend picking up this novel and giving it a long, slow read!
Thank you to @goodreads and @williammorrow for this review copy!
valmai's review
3.0
This book is reminiscent of Faulkner and Erdrich with far-reaching history into American history through the lens of fictional family Forster and their legacy in cola. The problem is how wandering the narrative gets and how horrible some of the life events are. It’s well written, but not striking.
kmk182's review
4.0
A well written novel that passes through several generations of one family and the cola empire they oversee. My biggest problem with the novel is it needed some more meat on its bones. With so many characters over several generations the book comes in under 400 pages and there's no big payoff. Many of the characters are set up for tragedy but then get brushed away.
heidi_beattie's review
2.0
Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt: A book with "pop" "sugar" or "challenge" in the title
daretocarebear's review
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this box. While the content was interesting, the style was very difficult to follow, especially in an audio book.
hannahjsimpson's review
3.0
I feel very torn on this. The writing is excellent, but I'm not sure if it's a good book. I think the lack of plot brings this down a star or two in my book. The concept of a southern gothic look at the rise and fall of an American family had a lot of potential, but there were almost too many characters to make it truly good. I would have gladly read a book about Monty Forrester, or Imogen Forrester, or Houghten Forrester, or Harold Forrester and Robert Vaughn. It would almost make a great miniseries on HBO or Amazon.
I enjoyed the writing enough to like the book and I look forward to what else Wright will publish.
I enjoyed the writing enough to like the book and I look forward to what else Wright will publish.
knunderb's review
4.0
A sad story with a bit of a redeeming ending. Some of the characters made my stomach curl, while others were endearing and lovely. At times, the book was hard to follow as it jumps around time periods without warning.